2AY, covering the ‘twin cities’ of Albury and Wodonga on the NSW-Victoria border, commenced broadcasting in December 1930. The station was originally owned by Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) Ltd and its original broadcast frequency was 1480 kHz. It changed to 1494 kHz in 1978.
Above: 2AY in 1993.
By 1993, 2AY had obtained a supplementary FM licence (call-sign: 2AAY) and transferred the ‘2AY’ branding to the FM frequency of 104.9 MHz. This led to the 1494 kHz frequency to be re-branded as 1494AM (above). The change was short-lived, however, as by 1995 ‘2AY’ was re-instated to the AM frequency (below) and a new branding, B104.9 (now Star FM), was adopted for the FM station.
2AY and Star FM were more recently owned by DMG Radio Australia, who then sold most of its regional stations to Macquarie Regional Radioworks, now Macquarie Southern Cross. The new owners already held the licence for rival FM station 105.7 The River (call-sign: 2BDR) so to comply with media ownership restrictions chose to sell 2AY and keep Star FM and The River.
Since 2005, 2AY has been owned by ACE Radio Network, operating a network of AM and FM stations across regional Victoria. The station carries a mix of local programming and talk-back and sports programming on relay from Melbourne radio station 3AW.
Website: 2AY
1 comment:
How 2AY has gone completely to the pack ever since they broke away from the Maquarie Broadcasting Network. Now we all premumably live in Victoria. I refuse to listen to all that AFL crap, as many others, and get sick and tired of all VIctorian News. After all, we are in NSW!! That program in the early hours of the morning, which you fail to mention, leaves Mitchell's Melbourne program for dead.
Greg Kirkwood
South Albury
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