What's New
BY RadioToday Network June 5, 2026
What's New November 25, 2025
BBQ Bob: Absolutely crushing it in Brisbane Breakfast
Reporter
BBQ Bob Gallagher. Image: ACE Radio Network
If ever a station could lay claim to being the ‘the little engine that could,’ it is Brisbane’s 4BH.
It’s now over three years since 4BH repositioned itself as the city’s new home of Classic Hits, giving disenchanted listeners a new place to find their favourite music following the demise of 4KQ.
It was an astute decision, and one for which the ACE Radio Network continues to reap the rewards.
Today’s GfK Survey 7 saw 4BH beat SCA heavy hitters B105 for the very first time.
4BH is now #3 among all people 10+ in Brisbane and Bob Gallagher – aka BBQ Bob – is crushing it in Breakfast, rising 1.2 to now hold a 10.8 share.
“We’re happy in Brisbane,” ACE Radio’s Head of Metro Content John Vertigan (pictured above) tells Radio Today.
“BBQ Bob had a really good lift in Breakfast. There’s just a really good vibe about Classic Hits in Brisbane. We’ve got that More Music position and news 24 hours a day, on the hour, as well. So a good tick for us in Brisvegas today!”
Sydney’s 2UE also posted some pleasing results.
“Share, cume, TSL all up again,” says Vertigan. “A new high weekly cume of 323,000. That’s the highest it’s been under ACE Radio control.”
In Melbourne, 3MP and Magic both went down, with the 55 to 64 target demographic taking a hit.
Remaining philosophical, Vertigan says “We will continue our work in Melbourne.”
“We’re happy our overall cume is still growing over three cities – now almost a million people. We’ll take that going into Christmas!”
Such a shame 4BH could be a much better station if they would stop playing the same songs day in and day out it gets as though you kinda know what the next one is gonna be..boring!!!
Congrats BBQ Bob and 4BH. Pretty good for a heavily voice-tracked from lots of places station with little local external public interaction. You can’t even go to reception and collect a prize and meet an announcer. It kinda makes sense that the station is going to sit around where it sits survey to survey when it’s main rival was taken out of picture three years ago.
The long-term problem is that Classic Hits has a short life span remaining for an audience whose music foundation is based in the 60s-mid 80s. Look at Triple M 55 – 64, they are averaging 3 points or more better than 4BH. Changes at 97.3 have lost them some of the 55 – 64 they had in the last five years or so.
A station based on mood/sound/feel (not era driven), as was the pre 2014 version of 4BH and subsequently that Smooth FM (only in Bne as a DAB station) borrowed a lot of its foundations from, is going to have a longer life span. Look back to the time pre-2014 how competitive the 4BH v 4KQ was. Perhaps 4BH needs to move slowly back into that space and rebrand the feel for its longevity. An island of escape, a place to relax, where Robbie Williams ‘Angel’, sits perfectly alongside Bread “Make it with You”. Get it, before Smooth expands its footprint organically or by government broadcast license changes .
I agree with Ross. Their playlist is pretty predictable. Plus, they play so much Elton John. Tiny Dancer seems to be on high rotation. One of the secrets of 4KQ was they also played songs you haven’t heard in years, plus songs that were hits in Brissy but not in other states. That’s the problem with being programmed and mostly broadcasting from interstate, you don’t know the local market fully. It’s rating well because people have no choice. Give them 4KQ again on FM and it would be interesting.
GO BOBBBBYYYY!!!! awwwww i miss you!! big love to you & Suzie 🙂 xxx
Some songs are played the next day. No matter how much we complain they don’t listen and play safe according to their so-called private surveys which show Elton John, Billy Joel etc. popular. That’s why I ignore these “computerised” formats and download my own music with the added bonus of no ads and repetitive newscasts. Don’t need to buy songs either, just copy off CDs or You Tube.
I’m sure the fact that 4BH at least has a local presenter at breakfast (and doesn’t Scott Menz also have some Brisbane radio history?) is a major factor in the high ratings up there, in addition to the lack of a Smooth or Gold station on FM as per Southern capitals of course.
From a Sydney perspective, ACE repositioning 2UE from Easy Music to Classic Hits at the start of this year saw local presenters Trevor Sinclair and Gareth McCray bumped to weekends with Dave Ferguson disappearing from 7pm-midnight (in favour of automated music during that timeslot) without any real explanation mid-year.
Despite a bump up the last couple of surveys, I would’ve thought ACE Radio were hoping Classic Hits 2UE might be rating a bit higher by now (think 5-6% overall) especially in light of major changes to 101.7 during the past 12 months! Perhaps Cathy Jubb might get a decent increase in ratings next year once the big brekky/drive changes happen at Gold, but probably more likely is Bogart Torelli on Smooth picking up the bulk of Jonesy & Amanda listeners who can’t stand Christian O’Connell…