Of all the radio stations I worked at, 3BO Bendigo in Central Victoria was a wonderful experience for me and I remember it with great respect. It's not just rose coloured nostalgia, sure, when I started on Midnight to Dawn, there was the announcers meeting on the Thursday and regardless that I'd only been in bed three hours, there'd be a knock at the door and Peter Mcphee, the production guy, would whisk me away to the jocks meeting at the station. 3BO was my third commercial placement, having started at 2AY in July 1983, then 3SH Swan Hill in August 1984, then to the fully fitted out broadcast facility at Golden Square in mid October 1985. My involvement began with Mid-Dawn, Weekends, Nights then Afternoon. 3BO Bendigo operated as a then, state of the art broadcast facility with a scaled down capital city structure set up, along with the then gimmick of AM-Stereo, used also as a marketing device. Look, we could do a whole essay & thesis on Stereo AM as a mode of broadcasting and it was a hard sell for listener conversion. 3BO had a technical department and promotions department and administration pool and a compliment of announcers, sales department and the promotional vehicle, an orange coloured convertible volkswagon with flower decals and station logo and also some stupid muppet looking thing on a mini scooter called Hot Tot...jesus spare us but it was a kid-family thing. This was a fully functioning, now old school radio station set up with the works and the initial talent scout who spotted me was Mr Glenn Ridge, one time Sale Of the Century host and later Mr Brian Simpson took over as Program Manager...with his 1986 Mac Computer, swear he was attached to it. The format was Top 40, mainstream but day-parted musically, meaning a family type breakfast show with Mike O'Loughlin, Mornings with the late Mr David Talbot and then afternoons, drive, and night time for kids top 40 hits, or teenagers with Dial A Hit and a Stereoprofile thrown in. The audio here is a Stereo profile that Mike Harris constructed on his word processor, this is November 1986 remember, this was when I was filling in on nights. As to why he gave me a script on the Communards was to either make comment on me or educate the masses on tolerance ? I'll let you decide. The audio here was recorded in the studio on a Revox B77 on a 7 inch spool and all that's here is all I have after 20 great months at 3BO. This is NOT OFF AIR TX. I've added some soft knee compression here to even out the levels and chopped the songs short as, who wants ¼ hour of Communards, there is one commercial from David Talbot then a commercial from me, which to be honest now, I can hear it's like a train wreck, at the time I struggled with commercial reads and it shows but interesting none the less. Also the Jingles, I know station jingles are old hat today but 3BO 1986 had its own Australian made jingle package and basically the 'No Jingles' these days gets down to Network Stations not wanting to spend money on unnecessary jingles ...it's purely a $$$ decision. I believe the station jingle sound was the sweetener segue way to get you in a mood for the next music event and sing the station name in your head, probably annoyingly but you remembered the 'earworm' so you never forget the name and what station you might want to listen to. Bendigo 1986 had 3CV and ABC Radio & Classic FM and one community station at the most. The media landscape has irrevocably altered since the golden 80's, not better or worse just, different. I want to publically acknowledge the on air team at 3BO 1986, for those names I can remember, Mr David Talbot, Steve Woods, Andrew Pogue, Mike Harris, Sam Webster, newsroom was ABC legend, Michael Sexton and Peter Blinkinsop. When I was at 3BO I gave 100% to the best of my ability and though a nervous performer, I did the best I could at the time and I was always the soul of brevity because I figured, why clutter the message with extraneous crap when you can cut it down to a succinct, concise message, works well today in the world of Twitter X huh. In the first six months of 1987, I also ended up doing voice over on the then TV8 and I had a day time on air shift with TV commitment and this great work arrangement did cross my professional thoughts, sometime later after leaving, I wished I'd stayed to flesh it out longer and see how far it would go but I did what was best for me at the time and moved on in June 1987. In 2016, 3BO was rebranded with the ubiquitous Triple MMM brand, which is an 80's legacy brand. https://www.bendigoadvertiser.com.au/story/4189659/3bo-to-become-triple-m-after-re-branding/ 3BO Jingles 80’s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5btF_nLrf0E

• published: 01 Aug 2013
• views: 2627