What's New
BY Sarah Patterson June 22, 2026
What's New January 6, 2025
WSFM callsign change angers past presenters
During his new year’s eve shift, Rob Duckworth began the soft launch of WSFM Sydney’s name change to Gold 101.7, telling listeners “WS FM is now Gold 101.7.”
ARN has decided to rebrand the station to present “a unified identity” for the network. The changes are being made to “connect with a younger 25-54 audience while still appealing to the station’s loyal fan base.”
However, some of that loyal fan base, including past presenters, have been critical of the move, which will see the ‘Western Suburbs’ identity of the station put to rest.
WSFM has always been marketed and sold to advertisers as part of ARN’s Gold network, but now the name change is intended to cement that national image. But not everyone is happy.
Former presenter Pete Graham wrote on his Facebook page:
I devoted 18 years of my life at 2WS/WSFM.When I arrived The breakfast show Rated No 6, within a year it was in the top 2 or 3 for all of Sydney despite not having Sydney wide coverage. Mega Number 1’s in the West and South west areas. To this date my morning 9-Noon show is still the only WSfm show to be a clear number 1 on several occasions.I worked my guts out. I was everywhere like a Politician on the campaign trail. You name the event I hosted it. Plus publicity stunts at speedway events, Motorbikes events, Trotting events. Hosting Jukebox Saturday night Live shows to sellout audiences for 18 years… Many Hundreds of events over the years.SO THIS IS WHY I’M PISSED OFF>>The man in charge of WS is renaming it GOLD.. To quote Mr Campbell who feels the rebrand of Sydney’s WSFM will be a positive change.“What that will do is re-energise that station and it will give us some top of mind awareness, which we lack with WS … and remove any baggage associated with that brand over recent years.”BAGGAGE……….That’s how I feel, Imagine the hurt the other team members feel. Legends Like Steve Raymond, Hans and Kayley. Steve Blander, Dave D Whitcombe and so many more hard working radio professionals at 2WS/WSFM
Responding to Pete’s post, former breakfast presenter Kayley Harris was pragmatic:
Pete Graham you were Mr Everywhere. You were always the first to put your hand up to host community events.ARN changing the name doesn’t erase what we did. Everyone has baggage and it’s a good thing.Baggage makes me the person I am today…that and all the fabulous friends I made at 2WS.Those memories will never fade.
Former WSFM journalist Dominic Steele also commented on the changes:
It’s been a 20 year trajectory, but I feel very sad that radio station WS-FM is to abandon its callsign and rebrand as Gold-101.7 from 1 January 2025.
I was in year eight at school in 1978 when 2WS started with the tag line “The new sound of Sydney from out of the west. 1224 2WS.”The radio station license was for Western Sydney. The original owners lived in Western Sydney. 2WS was number one in Western Sydney. 2WS rated 45% in the west and the southwest of the city and (being an AM station with a transmitter located out in the west ) it could hardly be picked up east of Strathfield.I think it was Steve Raymond who coined the term ‘Greater West’ and linked the radio station’s identity with that term.By the time I was reading and editing news on 2WS in 1989-91 the line at the top of the hour was “Proudly serving Sydney’s Greater West, Your Station 2WS.” I would open news bulletins by saying “It’s 10 o’clock, good morning. I’m Dominic Steele. In Sydney’s Greater West it’s 15 degrees. On the coast it’s 19! ….” That we first read out the temperature for Western Sydney was a symbolic gesture for something real. On this radio station we put Western Sydney first in everything. We were unashamedly parochial in our programming, editorial coverage in news, in everything.Jason Smith was our Western Sydney roundsman. Every one of our radio news bulletins had at least one ‘Westie Story.’ Jason’s role was to scour local newspapers for stories. When Jason was on holidays I had to stop in at the Cumberland Newspapers printing press at 3:45 am on my way to work and pick up the first editions of all the local western Sydney newspapers.Hans Tõrv and Kayley Ann Harris were on breakfast with back to school Friday, broadcasting from a different public schools in Western Sydney each Friday. Even the news was read by Steve Blanda from the local school playground. If you were shopping in Blacktown or Campbelltown every shop in the shopping centre had us on the public address, and just about every shop advertised with us. The radio station made a lot of money from the rivers of gold of retail advertising in the west. (Check this 2WS news promo from 1989 https://bit.ly/4eS23zv)The radio station didn’t just have a soul. We were the soul of Western Sydney. None of the other radio stations I’ve worked at had soul like WS…The announcement that the station is abandoning the letters ‘WS’ from it’s name, and along with it’s geographic move to broadcast from North Sydney, really any connection to Western Sydney is lost, and now they can be part of a national network, with the same announcers all over Australia and cheaper branding.
I appreciate that it’s the owners’ radio station to do with what they will, but it does makes me feel sad, that while the dollar might triumph, Western Sydney has lost something significant.
Former News Director Steve Raymond commented on social media:
I just don’t want to believe it. [The name change] will trash nearly fifty years of tradition, heritage – and a loyalty bond that united 2WS and WS FM with the people of the greater west.
Dominic Steele included this sign with the old 2WS logo in his post.
Main photo: The late Rob Neil at the original 2WS reception desk.
What ARN have done is nothing compared to what SCA did to the regional stations renaming all to MMM
Sadly ARN doesn’t care about loyalty anymore. I am still bitter about the selling of 4KQ in Brisbane. All because ARN wanted more stations.
That radio promo was really something special to listen to. Localism is nowhere near what it used to be. This renaming is arguably just as bad as SCA renaming all regional stations to Hit or Triple M. All identity and soul is removed from what the radio station originally intended to be.
Whilst it’s sad to see iconic names disappear the truth is things change. We may not like it but that’s life. I get why ARN has changed it. Networking is the future. In addition other networks have the same name in each capital city eg Nova, MMM, Smooth. I suppose, for me, it’s the name they choose then l get that as well. Why change 2 markets to a different name. In the music side l personally found they play more older stuff and not much new. Their old format of “Hits and Memories” was a good blend. Even older folk can enjoy modern music.
So every other market has had name rebranding, often aligning with a legacy Sydney station identity.
In Melbourne EON FM became MMM, TTFM became Mix and now KIIS.
Brisbane lost 97.3 to KIIS
SCA have standardised HIT and MMM across the country.
But suddenly a (Western) Sydney station is rebranded and everyone loses their mind.
Stupid generic identity that allows the station to save money in promos. BORING.
@Michael, watch this space…
Sadly i think river 949 will be next. They already sold the station building in Ipswich and are now renting it with a 5 year lease.
Don’t think it’ll be long before it gets a rename. River 949 has over 25 years of heritage now.
Waaaaahhhh!!!
Although one suspects that (publicly at least) current on-air and behind the scenes personnel directly involved in station output just have to grin and bear things, I’d be considerably more interested to hear takes on the rebrand from ex-WSers whose association with the station is from sometime within the last 20 years. With all due respect to Dominic Steele, Pete Graham, Steve Raymond and Kayley Harris for their significant contributions to WS history, of course.
In light of the WSFM > Gold 101.7 relaunch, one also wonders if ACE Radio will be smart enough to reposition 2UE towards a Classic Hits format with some promotion of their 100 years of heritage just for good measure?
Now in fairness, I’m not expecting a major increase in 2UE’s ratings overnight. And realistically, I also don’t expect any Sydney commercial radio (or TV) station to ever go back to doing the sorts of community outreach stuff 2WS were renowned for in the Western suburbs during the 1980s/1990s. For better or worse, that kind of stuff is probably more the domain of SWR 99.9 FM and other suburban community stations nowadays.
But after years of 2UE and the former 2CH before it struggling to maintain relevance against a strong Smooth and WSFM, it’d be a great shame if ACE didn’t take advantage of a golden (no pun intended!) opportunity to improve their ratings position as one of their main competitors looks likely to faulter.
Australian radio network is f***ing up a traditional callsign in Sydney just to make it a Melbourne meme alienating their traditional audience to attract younger ones. that is not good business practice.
There’s a whole PHD study for an up and coming psychologist in some of these words. The world moves on. Living in the past, as great as it may have been at the time is probably not healthy.
This is overly dramatic about a name change! I reckon most people have no idea it stood for Western Sydney.
The audience demographic for Gold stations is adults aged 40 and over……
I was under the impression that WSFM was changing to Gold to attract the 18-24 demographic.
Looks like another poor decision made by ARN.
1.Kiss networked into Melbourne
2.WS name change to GOLD
3…..Three strikes and your out.
Looks like Mr Campbell has another fun year ahead.
To be honest, I think he has more on his plate than the WS name change.
@Bruce: “Brisbane lost 97.3 to KIIS” – except that station is now called KIIS 97.3? Probably a bad example to use IMO, the station’s format being changed (especially to something more CHR-based with top raters B105 and Nova adequately covering that market) was a considerably bigger problem. Anyway, history probably shows the original plan in 2001 was likely for 97.3 to be branded as a Mix station before 94.9 beat ARN to the 4MIX callsign.
@Dana: I would’ve thought most older 101.7 Sydney listeners who grew up when today’s “Memories” were the “Hits” of the 80s/90s (to paraphrase a slogan from the station’s increasingly distant past) are likely to know what the letters WS stand for.
As for brand networking being the future…if that’s the case, then why don’t Nine Radio try and dump 2GB or 3AW for “Nine Talk” or similar? Perhaps because if they did, even greater backlash would be received from listeners than what ARN are getting over the WS > Gold rebrand.
Whatever the case, why can’t Sydneysiders be upset that OUR last significantly local commercial FM station is succumbing to the pressures of networking? I’d hate to eventually be talking about the possibility of Jonesy & Amanda being replaced by a relay of Christian O’Connell from Melbourne on 101.7 breakfast.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not seriously suggesting that people in other cities/regions shouldn’t be upset about the demise of their local stations in favour of a networked identity/output. Similarly, I (however reluctantly) accept there’s nothing the average listener can do about rebrands like this. But surely, Sydney commercial radio losing its local flavour is equally as bad as it happening anywhere else?
I’m sorry to say that all of the WSFM/2WS are living firmly in the past. The world has moved on. Sydney has moved on! At the end of the day the audience does not care what the radio station is called – they are only interested in what is coming out of the speakers which judging by the last few surveys is better than any other FM station in Sydney. I say the name change (which has apparently been in the pipeline for a long time) makes perfect sense.
Does anyone who listens to KIIS 1065 seriously miss 2UW?
Maybe it is time for McDonalds restaurants to change their name.
Maybe Coca Cola could change their name too?
These are superb marketing ideas because apparently brand names mean nothing.
Its all part of networking the Gold format .. hello ????
@Moving On: While by and large I generally agree that regular listeners don’t care what a station is branded as, in this case it’s the optics of phasing out a brand which still has a reasonable amount of goodwill towards it that’s putting people offside.
As for the old 2UW…well, I suspect its relaunch as Mix 106.5 (the latter of which, is a mostly forgotten brand nowadays) with the AM > FM conversion all those years ago may have been made in preparation for 2WS coming under common ownership.
Rather wisely, it seems 2UE is repositioning itself under the “Classic Hits” format from Monday with a revised presenter lineup. Only time will tell, but I won’t be surprised if an ex-101.7 voice or two joins 954AM and Stereo DAB+ once ARN decides it’s time to network Gold shifts between Sydney & Melbourne.
While I don’t think 2UE are going outrate Gold 101.7 in the immediate future, it’ll nonetheless be interesting to see over the next year or so if ARN’s rebrand and ACE’s subsequent reaction is the thing that finally allows an AM music station to perform decently in the Sydney ratings again, after some 10-12 years of both the current 2UE and former 2CH (the latter of whom got hurt badly by the rise of 95.3, after performing decently enough for years) struggling to gain market traction against Smooth and WSFM!