I was lucky enough to have talked to Andrew Gyopar this morning (Hitz pres.)
and I include his press release in full below...

Melbourne’s longest-running community youth radio station Hitz FM congratulates Triple Seven Communications, Student Youth Network, Joy Melbourne and South Eastern Indigenous Media Association, the winners of the four new community radio licences announced today.

Hitz FM is disappointed however that after almost a decade of providing a service for Melbourne’s youth, the station has not been able to fulfil its objective of securing a full time broadcasting licence.

Hitz FM president Andrew Gyopar said the station was proud nonetheless of its achievements over the past nine years and the enormous contribution the station had made to Melbourne’s youth community.

"Over the years Hitz FM has given hundreds of young people the opportunity to gain broadcasting skills that have set them on the path to successful careers in the media."
"As well the station has provided a radio service that has entertained and informed Melbourne’s young people for the past nine years."

Mr Gyopar also acknowledged the role Hitz FM played in changing the face of Melbourne radio.

"Before Hitz FM started broadcasting Melbourne radio was dominated by classic rock and contemporary adult formulas."
"But when Hitz FM came on the scene the station proved Melbourne’s young people were dissatisfied with the existing radio services and wanted a station of their own."
"Since then existing commercial radio stations such as Fox FM and Mix FM (formerly TTFM) have dramatically changed their formats based on some of the initiatives adopted by Hitz."
Mr Gyopar went on to say that a station such as Nova FM would not exist today if Hitz FM had not broken the formula years ago and proven a station catering exclusively for young people could be successful.

He also thanked Hitz FM’s thousand of volunteers for working tirelessly over the past nine years to keep the station broadcasting as well as its many loyal listeners.

You can read the full text of the ABA announcement on their website.

************WHAT YOU CAN DO************
I can't be in Melbourne tonight.. but maybe you are.
Please show how much you appreciate the Hitz team's work by turning up at The Hard Rock Cafe.
It's the nicest thing you can do.

Here's the details.. 7pm TONIGHT at Melbourne's Hard Rock Cafe,
1 Bourke St (corner Spring St).
The door charge of $30 will include beer, wine, soft drinks and finger food until 9pm.

Official site update..
The official Hitz FM site has had a complete makeover. It's early days yet, but there's fantastic section of the site with the complete text of Andrew Gyopar's (Hitz president) speech at the final night of the final test broadcast. A speech? Sounds boring doesn't it?
Well, think again, coz what he had to say was right on target. Here's a small sample..

"Now we’re almost at the end of our 20th test broadcast. We’ve been on air for a total of 731 days since December 4 1992. That’s 17,543 and a half hours of music, talk, interviews, news, requests, specialist shows, listener talkback and outside broadcasts.
Today is our final end of broadcast party and that is sad. But tomorrow will be the start of the next chapter for Hitz FM. With broadcast number 20 behind us we will nurse our hang-overs, clean up the station, listen back to log tapes and all the other stuff that we usually do at the end of a broadcast.
Unlike before, however, this time we will also start preparing for full time broadcasting."

..read the rest of Andrew's speech at the official Hitz site.

The "whatever happens"party..
No matter "which station gets what" in the mail on Wednesday, the Hitz crew (past and present) will gather for the mother of all parties that night.

In December that year, it began.. 9 days using a little room in a school. A tiny transmitter pushed Hitz FM into the inner-eastern suburbs of Melbourne, and in 9 days, over 1,200 phone calls were received on one phone line.

By Summer '93/'94 Hitz FM had it's own premises, and broadcasted across Melbourne for 90 days. The station popped up on the ratings, media coverage was intense and Hitz FM was the "feel good" story of that Melbourne Summer.

In the years since, the ABA's licensing process has been delayed for a variety of reasons, but Hitz FM continued test broadcasting. Training volunteers, buying equipment and setting up in a more central location.

Other aspirant broadcasters have started during this time, some sound very 'inspired' by Hitz, others looking after different needs.

This Monday, December 17, an envelope will be posted by the ABA. It will arrive at Hitz FM on Tuesday... and we'll find out which station will be broadcasting full time across Melbourne.

Regardless of the result, Hitz FM changed Melbourne radio. It's success led to new aspirant broadcasters, and changes in the music formats of commercial radio stations. Songs played only on Hitz FM experienced chart success, and the music industry has been vocal in it's support of the station. Hitz volunteers have spread out, into successful careers in commercial radio, TV, newspapers, online and many other areas in Australia and overseas.

As part of the celebrations, they're catching up with some of the old Hitz crew,
including little old me! You'll hear Mr RWHC interviewed by Rod on air tomorrow night.

If you haven't been there recently, check out the official Hitz site for more details.
At this stage, there's not a great amount of info on the front page, but dig around...

NEWSFLASH! WILDFEST CANCELLED!
This is just in.. I'll quote from Wild themselves.. "One of our headliners (WARP BROTHERS) has refused to fly and other acts are looking doubtful due to the current world crisis - apparently Heathrow was shut this morning and things are very uncertain in Europe."
If you've bought tickets, you can get 'em refunded from your place of purchase.

Hitz FM's full time license application:
Hmm.. well, "a few weeks" was a good estimate back in August when we reported that a short time is all the ABA will need to make a decision on the Melbourne metro community license.
Since then, the estimate is now "before Christmas", which means sometime during the next 10 weeks.

Hitz and Wild on SBS TV:
Last Thursday (2/10) the SBS show Insight did a massive report on the Sydney and Melbourne fulltime community license processes.
We can't put video grabs up here, but we'll put some mp3s up soon so you can get an idea of what they covered.
Here's a few of the things in the report..
-Anthony 'Gogo' Ghergetta talking aboutt Wild, the CDs and showing you around the station.. including a guest appearance by the famous 'Wild Cat'.
-Lots of coverage of Hitz's applicationn and hearing.
-Other Melbourne aspirants including JOOY FM, KISS FM, Nu Country and Gospel Radio.

According to some Hitz fans who were present, it was quite an intense experience, with plenty of tough questions from the panel. You can now read the full transcript of the afternoon, by visiting the Melbourne Hearings page on the ABA website.

To summarise quickly, the ABA panel asked..
-Waht age group would Hitz broadcast too?
-Who is (or can be) on the Hitz committtee?
-What are(were) the links between Hitz and Wild?
-Who is in charge of station programminng and the song playlist?
-What agreements did(does) Hitz have wiith record companies?
-What found Hitz do with any surplus mooney it might make?
-Who (if anyone) would be paid at the sstation?

What's Next?
All aspirant groups have 2 weeks to put in any final written information, and then the ABA will announce the successful applicant groups.
How long will that take?
During the KISS hearing, Professor Flint of the ABA was asked the same question.
He said that it would be a short time, shorter than the Sydney license system took.
(ie a few weeks is not an unreasonable guess)

Wild FM CD 14:
They don't seem to be too worried about not having a license!
Wild CD 14 will hit the stores on September 10.
There'll be TWO megamixes one dance, one R&B,
plus tracks like You Are Alive - Fragma, Survivor - Destiny's Child,
Just The Thing - Paul Mac and Meet Her At The Love Parade 2001 - Da Hool.

Wildfest- what the??:
The other BIG Wild news is it's teaming up with Nova FM (Sydney) to present 'WildFest', a massive dance party in Sydney's Hordern Pavillion.
The headline acts are DARUDE and THE WARP BROTHERS, and tickets are available through about ten million places in Sydney. See the official wild site for more details.

Thanks to Andrew at Hitz, we have this exclusive, straight from the Hitz FM fax machine..

"The Australian Broadcasting Authority will conduct a public hearing in Melbourne to assist it in allocating three new Melbourne-wide community radio licences and one new community radio licence for Melbourne City.
The hearing will be conducted at the Melbourne Town Hall over the period 13 to 24 August 2001.
The timetable for the hearing, which will include the date that each applicant will appear, will be finalised shortly. Details of the hearing and timetable will be advised by letter to all applicants, and published in the Age newspaper."

This is the next step in the license application process.
After the hearings are held, the fulltime licenses will be awarded to the groups that the ABA believe have demonstrated the most compelling cases to receive them.

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