ACE Radio’s Jon Vertigan: “BBQ Bob is still sounding amazing & he’s thriving in our environment”

It’s quite understandable that Jon Vertigan would be pleased with the marginally improved ratings that 2UE has received in recent surveys, however I’m not entirely convinced they’re in a position (as they probably really *should* be) to pick up disgruntled J&A/101.7 listeners in 2026.

Cathy Jubb is a pleasant enough sounding broadcaster (and I’m reasonably sure, is likely to be a nice person in real life), but is there really enough of significance to separate the output of her Classic Hits Breakfast show on 2UE from the far higher rating More Music Breakfast Show on Smooth 95.3 on the far higher quality FM band?

Now sure, the music playlist of 2UE obviously skews a bit older than Smooth which goes a bit younger and is perhaps slightly more tailored to a female audience. But in the overall grand scheme of things, there’s not really a substantial amount of difference between the presenting styles of Cathy Jubb and Bogart Torelli…except for the fact the latter at least presents her show out of Sydney.

I’m honestly not sure if Cathy Jubb has even once, presented a brekky show from the Harbour City in the last 12 months or so. Even when 2UE had their Seniors Day OB at the Royal Easter Show on April 14 last year, it was Gavin Miller & Jon Vertigan who were flown up for that. If ACE Radio are still planning on doing a Seniors Day OB this year, it’ll be interesting to see which presenters are selected to be part of that – especially as Gavin Miller now basically just does The Classic Hits Countdown on Sunday mornings.

I do agree with much of Sydney City TV says and the comments make a realistic picture of the radio programs on Smooth and 2UE.The main difference is 2UE plays various singers from yesteryear that Smooth plays very little of or hardly ever.These singers include the likes of John Denver,Johnny Cash,Tom Jones,Tom T Hall,Val Doonican,Frank Sinatra,Roger Whittaker,Neil Sedaka,Paul Anka,etc.2UE is very much a baby boomers station which has sort of filled the gap left by 2CH and to a degree 2UW.Smooth is way more modern in that they will play music from the 70s up to today with very few 50s and 60s music.

The big advantage ACE has with 4BH is that Smooth is not in the mainstream marketplace up here. If it was it would rate well and 4BH would have to improve. Certain artists obviously research well for ACE, ie Elton John, so Rocketman and Tiny Dancer seem to be on high rotation. 4KQ, which 4BH inherited its audience from, used to intermingle “rarer” tracks into their playlist along with hits that were only hits in Brisbane and not down south. Because, bar for Bob Gallagher, everything else is done down south that local knowledge has been lost. Mispronunciation of local suburbs etc sometimes is also a problem, as is the announcer saying it’s a cloudy day in Brisbane when there’s not a cloud in the sky! If you don’t know people, don’t mention it! You can’t believe what the bureau forecast says!

Magic 1278 0.8% and 3 p. 05% no good.

Magic and VP in Melbourne under 1% not stabilising falling in a heap of poio

Anthony is correct in a number of things. Bob is the only announcer that actually sounds like a capital city announcer on a capital city station with the local vibe. The voice tracked announcers sound like regional radio announcers doing a generic stop down with a generic playlist not one as crafted as well as the old 4KQ one that was programmed for Brisbane. 4BH was lucky to inherit the listeners that 4KQ had when it closed down but will never sound as dedicated to the hits of Brisbane charts and the local personalities which were house hold names that actually interacted with the music and the music features and the audience. The audience gets what ACE sends out because in Brisbane it has no competition. It almost sounds like 1116 4BH relays the ACE capital city log that goes to other stations not a dedicated curated classic hits log for Brisbane based off top charting hits form the Brisbane Charts. 4KQ was a classic hits format that always moved forward tight punchy imaging energetic power hits that didn’t resell the breakfast show in every stop down. 4BH’s imaging is almost a hybrid Easy listening sound. 4KQ also only played the Hit version that charted of songs like Kiss Rock n Roll all Nite live single version never the album cut and also The charting version of bands like Cheap Tricks If You Want My Love not a version on a greatest hits album with extra bits in the song and also the original Rod Stewart Hit versions not the Greatest Hit CD ones with bits cut out eg Tonight’s The Night. It’s a wonder a community station or some group haven’t tried to buy some DAB spectrum in Brisbane and do a local Brisbane based classic hits sound and features. Bob is out rating his old Breakfast show that’s on FM He has a strong local audience base many would have grown up listening to him. He is their friend

I think people forget that ACE is very much a regional radio network with a handful of metro stations it runs under licence from Nine Radio (except for 3MP, which is ACE owned and operated). ACE will never have the budgets of the bigger networks ARN, SCA or Nova Ent. in order to compete on the same level.

That’s why 4BH will never sound like the old 4KQ, 2UE will never have the likes of Jonesy & Amanda, or Magic and 3MP will ever rate more than what they manage to get now on the AM dial. That’s just the way it is – definitely no disrespect to ACE, and they do a fantastic job punching above their weight ratings-wise in Sydney and Brisbane. Keep on kicking those goals!

@PJC: At least part of the problem with ACE down in Melbourne is that the AM music audience in that market is split between two stations. Without being on the FM band, I suspect about as high as 3MP and Magic 1278 can realistically get is about 2.5 to 3% each – especially as Gold 104.3 has lost far less of its local personality compared to WSFM…sorry, Gold 101.7!

As others have said, 4BH rates well as it does in Brisbane because they’ve basically got the market’s older-skewing music market to themselves, with Smooth and now Gold only DAB+/Streaming offerings up there. Aside from maybe a few community/fringe stations, I don’t think South East Queensland has *any* major older-skewing music station on FM.

Here in Sydney, 2UE’s ratings during recent years have (for the most part) been roughly somewhere in-line with those of 2CH during the final years of 1170AM being a music station, but in light of the changes to 101.7 you’d think ACE would be really hoping the ratings of 954AM and Stereo DAB+ can go up a bit this year.

Regularly scoring around 5-6% (so most likely outrating 2DayFM, Triple M and probably also a fallen from grace 702 ABC Radio Sydney) would seem like a realistic enough aim for 2UE, along with gradually shifting the playlist towards more of an “old WSFM/ARN Classic Hits” sound…perhaps not too dissimilar to the kind I heard from the Capital Radio Network on GNFM in Goulburn, while travelling to/from Canberra around the tail end of November.

Lots of comments obviously written by the same person……..