July 01, 2010

Canberra: 2KIX, 1CBR

Canberra is Australia’s national capital city – founded and designed in the early 20th century as a neutral point between Australia’s two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, and since 1927 has been the centre of Australia’s federal government.

On 27 February 1988, Canberra made Australian broadcasting history with the launch of two commercial FM stations on the same day.  The two stations were the first in Australia to be licensed as secondary stations to pre-existing AM radio stations.  The two new FM stations were also the first new commercial FM stations to launch in Australia since the initial roll-out of commercial FM in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth in 1980.

One of the new stations to launch in 1988 was KIX106 (call-sign: 2KIX).  KIX was the supplementary station for AM radio station 2CC which was part of the Australian Radio Network.

2KIX_1988 
KIX106 in 1988 (above) and in 1991 (below)

2KIX_1991

2KIX_1993

Above: KIX in 1993

In 1994, KIX was re-branded as Canberra FM 106.3.  The revamped station coincided with a change of official call-sign to 1CBR, as ‘1’ had been adopted as the radio call-sign prefix for Canberra although existing radio stations could elect to retain their NSW-based ‘2’ call-sign.

1CBR_1994

The station later adopted the branding Mix 106 and is now known as Mix 106.3.  Changes in the ownership of Canberra’s radio stations now have Mix 106.3 and rival FM station, 104.7 (call-sign: 2ROC) operating as sister stations.  The two stations are now owned in a joint venture between  Austereo and the Australian Radio Network.

2CC and its former AM rival, 2CA, are now jointly owned by Capital Radio Network.

Website: Mix 106.3

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

In March 1994, as a result of poor ratings, the CHR Kix 106 FM was taken off-air for 6 hours to implement a format change. No music was played, instead a looped recording of construction site sound FX accompanied by a voiceover stating 'we are building a better radio station' was played. The last song played on Kix 106 before going off the air at midnight was the same song that opened the station in 1988, INXS's Kick. Ironically the lyrics "Sometimes you kick, sometimes you get kicked" had become somewhat prophetic. The station was relaunched at 6am the following morning as the easy listening station '106.3 Canberra FM'. It remained so until 1997 when the station underwent another name and format change and became part of the 'Mix' stable under ARN.

Anonymous said...

Great site. A lot of useful information here. I’m sending it to some friends!

Anonymous said...

Awesome read - I really miss the Kix 106 days! Would love to know if there is a download somewhere of old Kix 106 recordings such as the promo...1-0-6-FM, Hits! Kix! FM.

Weird I still have that promo running through my head almost daily and it hasn't been played since '94.