This article commemorates the 50th anniversary of Triple J, Australia's youth radio station, highlighting its rebellious beginnings, impact on Australian music and youth culture, and its current challenges in a changing media landscape.
On this day in 1975, 2JJ – which later became Triple J – started broadcasting, exposing Australia to banned songs, swear words and radical politics. Those who were there reflect on the anarchy and the legacyin 1981 – radio’s former enfant terrible is now legacy media. Once the cornerstone of Australian popular music and youth culture , it risks irrelevance as listener numbers dwindle in the face of social media and streaming services.
“Ros was the rock for all subsequent women – more political and more dedicated than the men who, in turn, were either ego-driven, commercial radio tainted or ideologues,” recalls producer and programmer Sammy Collins, who joined the station in 1975. It was not unusual to come in and the mid-dawn person would be cutting lines of cocaine and speed on the desk
Hutchison recalls her time presenting the weekend breakfast slot in the 1980s: “I’d be out all night. It was not unusual to come in on a Saturday or Sunday morning and the mid-dawn person would be cutting lines of cocaine and speed on the desk. Which is not to say I participated in any of that. There were always stories of people having sex in the sound booths or the studios.”Double Jay producer and programmer Sammy Collins and presenter and producer Arnold Frolows wearing station t-shirts.
“I thought at the time that the station had turned into the alternate to the alternate to the alternate,” the late presenter Stuart Matchett once told me. “It was like every track that you played on air had to be one that had never been played before and that no one else played. Some of the presenters were negative about other music and would say how terrible other popular bands of the time were.”
“You knew something was happening,” says Richard Kingsmill, a former music director at the station and its longest serving announcer until last year. “Spiderbait, the Beasts of Bourbon or the Cruel Sea were playing to 40 people at Max’s Petersham Inn in Sydney and they were suddenly winning seven Aria awards. You knew something was happening and we were right in the box seat.”By 1995 Triple J had been rolled out to all the regions, which meant the bands it chose could suddenly tour nationally.
Media History TRIPPLE J RADIO AUSTRALIA MUSIC YOUTH CULTURE HISTORY SOCIAL MEDIA STREAMING SERVICES
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