After six days on air, the Gold Coast’s Hot Tomato seems to be settling in. Program Director Rob McCasker told radioinfo about the music and the format.
The station is targeting 20 – 40 year olds, with a slightly female skew, “but you can’t get too sharp with the skew in a market this size,” says McCasker. There are about 15 songs per hour.
“We are six days old and we have been received magnificently. We knew that two things would make us interesting – different music and never more than 2 ads in a row, and so far so good!”
“After doing our research, we knew we could get the music right. The people we surveyed said ‘do something different.’ Our format allows us to give them music across all eras and styles, we are not locked into one style… We are playing pop, rock and urban.”
Hot Tomato is playing those three genres of music – pop, rock and urban, in all clocks across the day, with more urban at night between 7 pm and midnight. “We have a mix of all of them in each hour and a nice sprinkle of new music. We are fairly aggressive about that and we think no one has that position in this market with any confidence.”
McCasker’s instruction to his announcers is to sound real. “We’ve backed off heavy presentation tricks and are asking the guys to just talk to their audience. We don’t use music beds under them. My approach is for them to be themselves.”
Breakfast is hosted by two Gold Coast locals – Luke Bradnam and Emile O’Keeffe. Bradnam came from Triple M Brisbane and has also done some work on ABC TV’s The Fat. O’Keeffe worked in the regional Queensland towns of Toowoomba and Townsville and has been overseas for the last 12 months. They are talking about things that are happening on the Gold Coast in their talk breaks, and have opportunities for callers in each of the breakfast hours. Topics they talked about today include a local story about a guy in hot water for keeping 12 chooks in his back year, through to the Amrosi trial. ”We are engaged with what people are talking about,” said McCasker.
Simon Mountain is hosting Mornings and is also Music Director. Rob McCasker is doing Afternoons himself, and BJ Edwards is on Drive. “BJ was at Triple M Brisbane before, but he used to drive here and surf, so we thought we better hire him and make it easier for him to get here every day,” joked McCasker.
Greg ‘crusty’ Bilston is on Nights and “two shining stars from AFTRS” Lisa Leong and Brendon Boss are doing overnights. “It’s good for the station for us to have live overnights, and it’s also good for the community and for the radio industry. If something happens we have people at the station at all times.”
There are two high rotation songs each hour and they spin around every 4 hours.
Some artists currently in the ‘high rotation’ category include: Black Eyed Peas, Good Charlotte, Beyonce and Michelle Branch.
New releases just added this week include: Dido – White Flag; the new John Mayer song; Alison Goldslat – Strict Machine; and Double Drive – Imprint.
“We’re pretty fresh,” says McCasker.
The station had a Sales Launch on Tuesday and has been running ads in the local Gold Coast Bulletin.
The campaign contains two linked ads on following pages. The image is with feature text, red spot colour and illustrated with “old time/Archie” comic drawings of the 2 characters who “speak” the copy:
Monday’s copy: Ad 1 – “Who’s listening to Hot Tomato?” Ad 2 – “Everyone who only ever wants 2 ads in a row. GUARANTEED!” Followed by: 102.9 fm hot tomato – it’s different! 102.9fm on air now
Tuesday’s copy: Ad 1 – “What’s up Geraldine? Don’t tell me that cad Reggie has let you down again…” “…It’s not that Tom. It’s that DARN radio – all ads, no music…” “…You obviously haven’t heard the one about the Hot Tomatoes!” “Cont. next page”
Ad 2 – “At last, true entertainment… a radio station that only ever plays 2 ads in a row (logo) it’s different! now playing at 102.9 on a radio near you.”