4MK and Zinc FM in Mackay have moved to new premises after 40 years in the old building. The station has moved down the street, from number 85 to number 37 Sydney St Mackay, after gutting and refitting an old building. The previous home will be demolished.
radioinfo has pictures from inside the new studios.
4MK started in 1931, celebrated its 80th birthday last year and moved into 37 Sydney Street in 1971. It was 4MK’s third building during its lifetime.
As the move progressed, administration moved first, and last week all the on air shifts gradually went on air from the new studios.
Program Director Scott Linden has told radioinfo:
“With our move to the new building which is exciting, the sad part is that we shut down another one, which is going to be bulldozed. 85 Sydney Street was built and opened as a radio station in 1971… It has been home to 1026 4MK AM, HotFM, 4MK FM, Easy 1026, ZincFM and 4MK AM again.”
After various sales and amalgamations over the years, at one stage, in 2005 and 2006, the 3 studios had breakfast shows with three different owners of the three stations.
4MK was the first station in Queensland, north of Brisbane. It was started in 1931 in the founder’s home. It’s first music library was largely donated by listeners / subscribers and local music stores would often loan them records.
Linden says the station “would be one of few radio stations in Australia that actually has its first microphone, our founder’s widow Jean brought it back to us in 2005, its on my new desk right now.”
The photos below tell the story of the old and the new premises:
The old 4MK FM / ZincFM studio. “It leaked like you wouldn’t believe and in wet season rain events, we’d do the show under a tarp or plastic sheet,” says Linden.
As radioinfo reported back in 2008, the old 85 Sydney Street building had a huge flood. “Water poured in through the roof, the studio areas was sandbagged off… One ongoing bit of fun in the Zinc studio was water dripping off the exposed electirlcal cables in the ceiling, and coming in around lights,” recalls Linden.
“The shots below were taken as we were wrapping up the breakfast shows on the last day. The Zinc studio has a tube we rigged up to take leaking water out of the aircon vent. The old HotFM Mackay studio had not been used since part way through 2006.
“The photos also show the very old production studio, not used since 2005 and the 4MK AM studio, which was the original production studio converted to make an on air 3rd for the building,” says Linden.
The New Home
And finally the station is in a new home. The photos below are of studio One which is Zinc, studio 2 is 4MK (a flip reversal of studio One), and Studio 3 is a voice booth which can act as a back up to the other two.
