In an age when most radio promotional ideas are stolen – sorry, subject to “knowledge capture” from the US, its refreshing to see an Australian station come up with something fresh and clean and useful. Even more refreshing is that it’s a regional station belonging to the Macquarie Southern Cross Network often maligned for creating cookie cutter networked shows with an eye more on share price than the listener. Yet its been almost two years since MacBank added the old Southern Cross network to its broadcast behemoth with many predicting the death of localism and spontaneity in the bush. But there’s little doubt that regional stations are still populated by a wealth of creative young talent who seem happy work with less to create more while some of their city counterparts earn fortunes to act boorish.

While metro stations with big budgets often rely on Auditorium Music Tests (AMT) to decide what listeners want to hear, Mix FM Sunshine Coast conducted their own AMT live to air.

As part of the station’s annual Great Radio Checkup (sponsored by a local medical center) Mix FM went a few steps further by squeezing 200 samples of songs into one hour, asking listeners to rate each song on a scale from 1 (unfamiliar) to 6 (love it).

“Test Forms” were distributed via a full page ad in the local Newspaper and online at the station’s website. The response has been overwhelming.

What say you? On balance has networking killed the spirit of regional radio or is it still alive and kicking?

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