It’s the station you hear inside every cab and every Uber, every op shop and doctor’s waiting room. It’s the station beloved by your gran and the definition of a watered-down, easy listening broadcaster.
But it’s also very likely your guilty pleasure station. At least according to the latest radio ratings survey, which saw Smooth FM absolutely crush it, rising to the position of Sydney’s favourite FM station.
As News Corp reports, it’s also made huge leaps in the notoriously tough to crack Melbourne market within just four years, converting listeners en masse to the ways of Michael Buble and early George Michael.
The station was the brainchild of Paul Jackson, Nova Entertainment’s Group Program Director, who has a vision for the station that welcomes all music lovers, regardless of their age bracket or their tastes.
“It’s one of those rare stations where people from 25 to 35 to 45 say, ‘It’s for me, I feel comfortable listening to it’ and anyone over that age doesn’t feel out of the loop either as they might do with other formats,” he told News Corp.
He’s also got some lofty goals for the broadcaster. “What we want is Smooth FM to be a Triple J’s listener’s second favourite station and for them to think it’s cool. I think that’s where we’ve got to now,” said Jackson.
“Everything I put into Smooth is everything no one else is doing, even though I’m running Nova as well,” he added. “I took the opposite view: Why don’t we come in with a selection of records no one else plays?”
“There’s George Michael songs from the ’80s that haven’t been played here for 20 years. It’s unbelievable. That was our philosophy: Do you remember that song? Great? We’ll play it.”
But according to Jackson, there are some strict rules governing what gets played on Smooth FM and how it gets played. There is a banned list at the station and it must be adhered to by all hosts, no matter how ‘smooth’ the song may be.
“That Daniel Powter song ‘Bad Day’ — we’ve never played it,” said Jackson. “REM’s ‘Everybody Hurts’ might be a great song but we won’t play it. It doesn’t make you feel good, it doesn’t fit the ethos of the station.”
“Smooth is about making you feel good, so if songs are hugely negative or dreary we just don’t play them.” Michael Buble is the station’s most-played artist and his song ‘Hold On’ is its most played song.
According to Jackson, there’s also strict rules about not talking over songs, not mentioning the dates of songs, breaking up the music with talk segments, and the station also refuses to do market research on its playlists.
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But what’s perhaps most interesting about the way the station is managed is its refusal to kowtow to ageist trends. For example, Smooth was one of the few Australian radio stations to play new music by Tina Arena.
“It’s about making great songs. If Madonna made a great song again, people would think it was amazing and it’d be on radio. ‘Were her songs good enough?’ would be my question,” said Jackson.
“We’d play anything by anyone of any age, from the youngest artist to the oldest. Same with Nova — if the songs are great … Great songs transcend.”
