Stereo 974

Stereo 974 (call sign: 3WRB) is an English language pop and Languages Other Than English (LOTE) station in western Melbourne, Australia. It broadcasts on 97.4 MHz. It commenced broadcasting in the mid-1980s. Western Region Broadcasting was changed to a corporation structure with a Board of Directors and membership but was fraught with problems and the committee was brought before the then Chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal, Mr. Peter Westaway at Naura House in the first instance and later at the Brimbank Council offices. When the Station Management and ABT agreed on new regulations, Western Region Broadcasters began providing local area broadcasting once again. ^[1]The original committee consisted of Noel Grieg (President), David Sharpe JP (Vice-President), Anthony Cerantonio, Trudy Burke, George Eliades (Technical Engineer) and approx 200 members. The station started at a 40' shipping Container in Duke Street, Braybrook later moving to the West End Market in McIntyre Road, Sunshine and finally, under the new Management of Rod Boyd, to its current location at 594 Geelong Road, Brooklyn.

History

The radio station commenced transmissions under the original callsign "3WRB", with an original coverage area including the present Melbourne West RA1, Werribee RA1 and Melton RA1 sub-metropolitan licence areas.

Following on from there, the radio station was under the 3WRB banner once again. After many years of continued stability, the radio station publicly relaunched with a music / ethnic focus under the brand name "STEREO 974".

Programming

Daytime programmes from 08:00 to 18:00 (8 in the morning to 6 in the evening) Monday to Friday are English language Country Music. Breakfast, weeknights and weekends feature non-English programming, mainly in Vietnamese, Spanish, Maltese, Greek, Somali, Samoan, Serbian, Sinhalese, Punjabi, Turkish.

STEREO 974 presents over 60 hours of non-English programmes per week, for which it received grants from the Federal Government (via the Community Broadcasting Foundation) of approximately $2000 per annum per averaged weekly hour. The most recent grant round saw the station receive just under $40,000 for the six months to 30 June 2009 for ethnic programmes alone.^[2]

The station features a popular overnight programme, Truckstop, from midnight until 06:00 in the morning every day of the week, with extended country music programming until 08:00 on Saturdays and 10:00 in the morning on Sundays. The programme includes all the best from classic to new country, rockabilly and trucking music. The programme is computer playlist generated, with occasional recorded voiceovers from station General Manager and Truckstop host, Rod Boyd.^[3]

Stereo 974 is also extremely proud to present the world's longest running Beatles radio programme Let It Be Beatles each Monday night 22:00 - 24:00 (ten in the late evening until midnite). Let It Be Beatles has been on air continuously every week since September 1992, presenting rare recordings, news, Fab chat and lots of fun with regular hosts Graeme Dickenson, Gary Lally and Greg Armstrong.

Coverage area

ACMA Coverage Area Map

References