What's New
BY Jen Seyderhelm June 1, 2026
What's New July 8, 2025
ACE Radio’s Grant Johnstone on STAR 92.1 program decisions and the future of 2AY
Reporter
ACE Radio's Grant Johnstone. Image supplied
When Wangaratta’s 1566 3NE officially transitioned to the FM band last month with the launch of STAR 92.1, some of the local audience had a bone to pick.
With Melbourne talkback host Tom Elliott omitted from the new Star line-up, listeners like Ernest weren’t happy that the 3AW Mornings presenter would no longer be heard on the North East Victorian airwaves.
“Eliminating programs such as 3AW morning shows like Tom Elliott has disappointed my family and I,” Ernest told Radio Today. “Your main audience is people 50 years plus. I think you have erred in your decision.”
Similarly, Michelle said “My mum is 91 years old and looked forward to hearing Tom talk every day – it kept her up to date with things that were happening.”
Grant Johnstone – Chief Marketing Officer for the ACE Radio Network – says they knew that dropping Elliott’s program wouldn’t necessarily be a popular move.
But as he stresses to Radio Today, the decision was certainly not taken lightly.
“We understand it was disruptive for people,” Johnstone says.
Survey data in the market and the opportunity to move the station in a fresh direction were among the major factors taken into consideration.
“When you’re given the opportunity to convert something from AM to FM and you’re given a fresh lease on life … we’re thinking long term for the station – that it really was the best thing for us, to be able to move that forward,” says Johnstone.
A bit further north on the Victorian-New South Wales border, the ACE Radio Network has – in recent years – applied to also shift Albury’s 2AY to the FM band
Should it win approval, might that mean the almost 100-year old-2AY callsign will disappear?
“We literally haven’t finalised the decision,” says Johnstone.
While there is alternative branding being looked at, Johnstone says they’re considering every option, and nothing is set in stone.
“There are just so many variables still in play with that market,” he says.
Johnstone also points out that Albury is quite a different market to Wangaratta.
“There are other complications around community stations and what have you that all need to be considered. So the conversion itself has a got a little more complexity than, say, the Wang market.”
It’s now almost a week since ACE Radio launched a new brand identity with an updated, contemporary look.
Being a small, family-owned business, Johnstone says it was a courageous decision in some ways.
“To suddenly revamp something is always a tough decision to make.”
“We worked very much on the evolution – not revolution – theory when we were putting particularly the ACE corporate stuff together.”
With further changes still yet to roll out, the ACE team is happy with the direction in which the brand refresh is heading.
“We’re still blue and red,” says Johnstone. “But it’s more of a pastel 2025 blue and red, rather than a 1990 blue and red.”
*Tom Elliot image credit: 3AW website
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What's New
BY Jen Seyderhelm June 1, 2026
“Survey data in the market…” I doubt any quantitative research was carried out at all. It’s more about revenue, not the listener which is typical of some, if not, most networks. Explains why the majority network or VT from elsewhere.
Honestly, I think the new format is a great move and generally reflects the listening market in the NE/Border community much more than the old 3NE did + it’s a reflection on where the market is going too.
I find the statement that “Your main audience is 50 years plus” to be rather incorrect. Maybe on the AM band – but unlikely on FM.
With cost of living completely out of control, people are leaving Melbourne and heading North/North East, and places like Wangaratta and it’s surrounding towns are about to see (and you’d say, are already seeing) a heavy growth in the 35+ (first home buying) age brackets, and a station that caters to them is seriously the way forward. Those people aren’t listening & are unlikely to listen to 3AW talkback.
I suspect this is a pioneer – that is, where a majority of current Adult Hits/Classic Hits stations will evolve to eventually. Well done ACE.
@hugh pilecrap the most recent survey in Wang showed this.
10+
Edge : 21.9
3NE : 9.1
with 3NE’s profile very old
10-17 : 0%
18-39 : 0%
25-39 : 0%
40-54 : 2.5%
55-64 : 6.5%
65+ : 26.4%
If you owned that station, you’d have taken the opportunity to down-age it as well with an FM conversion. That age profile in a 2-station market (albeit with Albury fortuitous coverage) is borderline unmonetisable, and even with the FM conversion, retaining a morning talk show would not have materially changed the age profile.
Not a good decision IMHO, but as ACE are the only commercial broadcaster in Wangaratta, they have the stranglehold, and can do what they like. They might think twice about dropping certain programming in the Albury market if they convert to FM , as there are other commercial competition. Could be a option for the community station in Wang to take on Tom Elliot. A bit like the Community station in Albury who rebroadcasts the racing….
Ratings wise, presumably May/June 2023 was the most recent radio ratings survey done in Wangaratta? Although you’d think ACE Radio almost certainly would’ve done some kind of tracking in the market since then, before deciding to relaunch 1566 3NE as Star 92.1
As for Albury, I’m pretty sure both stations in the SCA duopoly were already outrating 2AY by a significant margin. So with that in mind, it probably won’t be any surprise if ACE decides to relaunch 2AY if/when it wins approval for a FM conversion.
General station branding wise, I’ll be particularly interested to see (and hear) how things are implemented with this new strategy on ACE’s metro stations – aside from Magic 1278 which seems to have already changed over.
We’ve currently got 2UE and 4BH running a messy hybrid of the former Easy Listening and current Classic Hits approaches, so I’d imagine that the eventual brand relaunch (perhaps later this month as the metro survey period resumes?) may result in a somewhat more streamlined approach for those two stations.
Congratulations to ACE. Everybody on these sites bags stations for just being an AW relay station. Now a local station playing a great variety of music with local announcers. Good job and I stream it from Melbourne as the Elliot fans can do if they want.
As Johnstone says, the Albury-Wodonga region is a very different market to Wangaratta’s. There’s more commercial competition, particularly in music based formats. ACE would be mad to expand ‘Star’ across to ‘2AY FM’. Surely, they’d be better off maintaining AY’s more talk format as a differentiator? And given the signal overlap between the markets, can’t listeners in Wangaratta tune in and hear 2AY anyway?