4BH

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4BH

City of license	Brisbane, Queensland
Broadcast area	Brisbane RA1 ([1])
Slogan	The Best Songs of All Time
Frequency	882 kHz AM (also on DAB+)
First air date	December 25, 1931 (1931-12-25)[1]
Format	Easy listening
Language	English
Power	5,000 watts
Transmitter coordinates	27°27′51″S 153°8′52″E / 27.46417°S 153.14778°E / -27.46417; 153.14778
Affiliations	Fairfax Radio Network
Owner	Fairfax Media Ltd (Radio 4BH Brisbane Pty Ltd)
Webcast	Windows Media
Website	4bh.com.au

4BH is a radio station in Brisbane, the state capital of Queensland, Australia. Its analogue broadcast frequency is 882 KHz AM and markets itself for the baby boomer market. 4BH also broadcasts in digital using the dab+ format on the Brisbane 2 DAB ensemble channel 9B 204.640 MHz. It is owned by Fairfax Media.

History

4BH broadcasts from its Cannon Hill headquarters, and is the sister station of 4BC. 4BH (transmitting from Bald Hills) was opened by J. S. Kerr on 2 January 1932.^[2] Bob Ackery was a breakfast announcer, then "drive time" announcer on 4BH before becoming Program Manager and eventually General Manager of the station in the 1980s. In the 1950s and 60s George Lovejoy provided commentary on Brisbane rugby league matches for the station.

In 1975, 4BH started broadcasting "Beautiful Music", which became their focus except for a period in 1994 when the station converted to talk which was up against 4BH's now sister station 4BC and 612 4QR Brisbane. The station successfully bid for an FM license (conversion) in 1990 but couldn't come up with the cash when it was time to pay. 4KQ was the second-highest bidder but also failed to produce the cash. In 1995, after the disastrous Talk format experiment, 4BH was placed in receivership and bought for just over $2 million dollars by Unitel and the Ipswich and West Moreton Broadcasting Corp. 4BH was relocated from Spring Hill to shared studios at the 106.9 QFM building in North Ipswich (now River 94.9).

Between 1995 and 1997, 4BH returned to the top two ratings position. In January 1997 4BH was sold to the Australian Radio Network (owners of 4KQ) for over $11.5 million dollars, who owned 4BH until January 2002 after ARN and DMG Radio Australia jointly launched 97.3 FM, so ARN sold 4BH to DMG and in February 2003, 4BH was sold yet again to Southern Cross Broadcasting because DMG had won an auction to set up an FM service on the Sunshine Coast.^[3][4][5]

In August 2002, the stations transmitter in Wynnum West was felled by vandals, causing the station to go off air.^[6] The station returned to air a few days later on low power.^[7] Two teenagers were eventually charged and pleaded guilty.^[8] It later emerged that the reason for the attack was due to a dislike of the transmitter site and also of the station's music.^[9]

Cannon Hill studios

In 2004 the station moved from to new purpose built premises at Cannon Hill in 2004.^[10]

In November 2007, 4BH, with all Southern Cross Broadcasting radio stations, are now owned by Fairfax Media.

Programming

4BH's main component of programming is their music mix of easy listening favourites from the 60s through to now. The station also airs its own news bulletins on the hour from 5am to 11pm weekdays, with half hour updates weekdays 5-9am and weekends 6-9am. Traffic reports are also heard twice an hour, seven days a week, with extra updates weekdays between 6-9am and 3-6.30pm.

Executive team

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Current 2011:

• General Manager – David McDonald
• Program Director – Geoff Harrison
• News Director – Scott Mayman

References

External links

• 4BH