Triple M Melbourne is 40

Triple M Melbourne marked its 40th anniversary just last week, having gone to air at one past midnight on 11th July 1980 as EON FM.
 
Recording entrepreneurs Bill Armstrong, Glenn Wheatley and Bill Conn had successfully bid on one of the two Melbourne FM licences, and beat Fox FM to air by two weeks.
 
Peter Grace was the first announcer on-air at EON, and the first song was from the Eagles, New Kid in Town.
 
Armstrong was the first managing director with Clyde Simpson as GM, Lee Simon as PD and Billy Pinnell looking after the music.
 
EON’s initial programming philosophy of playing songs that “would not be played elsewhere” was not at all well received, and Lee Simon went against the album-orientated formats favoured by other FM stations, introducing a top 40 format, and then asking Molly Meldrum to join Gavin Woods for breakfast.
 
In 1985 EON finally topped the Melbourne ratings, and then a year later was sold to Triple M Sydney, owned by Hoyts, for $37.5 million.
 
Two years later, the D Generation introduced a totally new style of breakfast show, with the team of Tom Gleisner, Santo Cilauro, Rob Sitch, Tony Martin, Michael Veitch, Mick Molloy and Jason Stephens with Jane Kennedy recruited from the newsroom.
 
Others, including Marg Downey, Magda Szubanski and Judith Lucy had small stints on the show that was anchored by Ian Rogerson in 1987, Peter O’Callaghan in 1988 and Kevin Hillier from 1990-92.
 
In late 1990, Triple M moved from South Melbourne to 140 Bourke Street, Melbourne.
 
Towards the end of 1991, the D Generation successfully pitched The Late Show to the ABC, and when the team left, Richard Stubbs moved to breakfast with Tim Smith and then Brigitte Duclos joining him for the Richard Stubbs Breakfast Show.
 
Village Roadshow purchased the station in 1994 before merging with Austereo in December that year and two years later the station moved from its home in central Melbourne to the 1st Floor of the Fox FM building at 180 St Kilda Road, St Kilda.
 
When Stubbs retired at the end of 1997, Tim Smith joined forces with Steve Bedwell for Timbo & Bedders for Breakfast, and continued in the prime slot until 2001.
 
The station continued to be innovative with talent, and The Cage, The Whole Shebang, Tough Love, and Get This were among shows that ran on the station, and the talent lineup saw  Robyn Butler, Alan Brough, Richard Molloy, Ed, Chas and Dom from The Chaser, Wil & Lehmo and James Brayshaw.
 
On 7 September 2009, the new breakfast show, The Hot Breakfast with Eddie McGuire, Luke Darcy and Mieke Buchan commenced broadcasting.
 
Mick Molloy replaced Buchan and remained on the show until 2017, when he transitioned to a national drive time show, Kennedy and Molloy with Jane Kennedy, with Wil Anderson taking Molloy’s place until he left the show at the end of last year

 
 

 

 

 

 


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