Most people in our industry have strong ideas of what a commercial radio station looks like. Noosa.Radio, which launched in March and bills itself as a commercial streaming radio station, has come along to challenge those norms and to also see if they can make an impact in the Sunshine Coast market.

Noosa is an interesting mix of tourists and locals of an average age of 47. Because of its glorious weather I would say, from experience, that it no longer has an off-season period.

Xtra Insights conducted a radio survey of the Sunshine Coast region this month, with ARN’s Hot FM No 1 for the first time, followed by GSL Media’s MIX FM 92.7 and 91.9 SEA FM. After the top three are six ABC stations, and that’s it, for the survey at least.

Outside of the nine mentioned there is also Zinc 96.1, also owned by ARN, based in Maroochydore, and considered to serve the Gympie market, alongside the Super radio Network’s 4GY.

Then there’s the community radio players; Noosa FM, Salt 106.5 and Sunshine FM. Sunshine FM says it’s “the most listened-to station on The Coast, with more music, more memories, more often.”

The station says this after a McNair National Listener Survey – Sunshine Coast, conducted over several years, found they have 102,000 listeners every week. My late father-in-law was one of them. He adored the station and was vociferous in his praise and commitment. It was always on at his Noosa home.

Also this month, GSL Media finally turned on repeater frequencies (102.5 SEA FM and 103.3 MIX FM) to give listeners a better reception in Noosa and the surrounds, as well as additional localised content. MIX has subsequently updated their social pages to no longer mention the call signs.

Into this mix comes the new player Noosa.Radio, and I had the opportunity to talk to Program Director Jon Marshall about what they’re offering and how it is being delivered to their listening audience.

L-R CEO and founder Mark Sutton, station manager Bree Kelly and Jon Marshall in front of the Noosa.Radio kombi

Noosa.Radio is a streaming station, like Spotify, that you can listen to anytime and anywhere via their app. To allow themselves to hopefully establish it as a long term as a sustainable business, on-air presenters, at this point, are volunteering their time.

Jon said:

“We have a very different business model. A lot expect you to have an AM or FM band, and we don’t. We’ve got a lot of local support because there is a gap there. We also wanted to be able to move beyond sponsors, like in community radio, and take a commercial approach.”

A commercial approach also comes with recording your music airplay for APRA/AMCOS. That’s where Nick Humbert came in. Humbert has decades of experience presenting in community radio and as a multi-platform international media sales/business development consultant in the UK, US and Australia and was critical to the set up and establishment of Noosa.Radio.

The station goes to air from the Noosa Surf Museum, Tewantin, using StationPlaylist software for its automation and streaming through radio.co. It has been a pilot model for radio.co too, with Jon saying:

“They’d never had anyone stream with live scheduled DJs before, a traditional radio station on a digital platform. So they’re particularly interested in us.

And, the thing about streaming radio is that you know who is listening every minute of the day.”

The station currently offers a mix of magazine style shows with adult contemporary music. Program topics range from real estate, council happenings, health and wellbeing to food and travel. It is also a social enterprise with the motto, “Listen like a local”.

This is a different take on narrowcast stations like Vintage FM or the business centred DAB+ station Disrupt Radio.

Disrupt started at the other end of the spectrum, with a grand launch and paid high profile presenters like Jules Lund and Libbi Gorr. Unmade has reported that Disrupt staff are currently standing down due to unpaid wages. It is difficult as a start up station to compete with large radio networks.

But the mix of business heads, local knowledge and investment plus a commitment to good audio stands Noosa.Radio in good stead, and is perhaps a template for other provincial markets to try the same.

Jen Seyderhelm is a writer, editor and podcaster for Radioinfo