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2SM

2SM is an Australian radio station, licensed to and serving Sydney, broadcasting on 1269 kilohertz on the AM band. It is owned and operated by Broadcast Operations Group. The SM call sign is taken from the initials of Saint Mary's.

2SM's programs are heard across the 2SM Super Radio Network in regional New South Wales, the Northern Territory and Queensland, consisting of over 60 AM and FM stations.

2SM unveiled its denim zipper logo in 1975. Although the logo is inextricably linked to 2SM, it was, according to radio historian Wayne Mac, actually created for Brisbane pop station 4IP by a company called Eagle Marketing and subsequently adopted by other stations including 2SM, 3XY and 2NX.

James Meany, a parish priest at St Mark's Drummoyne, raised funds to allow Archbishop Michael Kelly to form the Catholic Broadcasting Co. Ltd, and it obtained a licence for radio 2SM in 1931. The station, owned by the Roman Catholic Church, was opened by Kelly on 24 December 1931. Apart from the regular Question Box program of Dr Rumble, religious content was, for most part, not its focus; but for most of its life 2SM followed a conservative line in its programming, and it was promoted as "The Family Station".

In 1958 2SM moved to premises at 257 Clarence Street, Sydney, maintaining its style. At the time, the station was run by General Manager Bill Stephenson, who started his radio career at 2UE in the 1940s before moving to 2SM in the 1950s. In September 1963 Stephenson oversaw a radical overhaul of 2SM's format. It started 24-hour service, and was relaunched as a Top 40 station. It had Australia's first team of disc jockeys, dubbed "The Good Guys"—a US-radio inspired format subsequently copied by 3AK, 5KA, 6PR and others. It relied heavily on adaptations of formulaic programming strategies sourced from American commercial radio.

Then in early 1967 2SM became the first station in the country to adopt the new "talkback" technology which enabled presenters for the first time to broadcast phone conversations with members of the public. In November 1968 2SM reverted to an all music format. In 1969 2SM aggressively fought to regain the youth audience it had lost to 2UW. During 1970 2SM established itself as one of the most promotionally active and innovative commercial stations. Rod Muir successfully transplanted the American "More Music" format to Sydney, making minor adaptations for the Australian market. With stringent format policies applying to music flow, commercial content, what announcers said and the placement of jingles, 2SM redefined the whole premise of music based radio in Australia. Key to the More Music philosophy was a strictly limited, high rotation play list of around 30 songs and which at peak times reputedly included as few as 15 songs in one three-hour shift. The new format had several significant effects. First and foremost, it brought to an abrupt end the days of the true "personality" DJs, as exemplified by 2UW's Ward "Pally" Austin and 3XY's legendary Stan "The Man" Rofe. The rigid formatting restricted the on-air presentation, replacing it with a highly affected, American-style presented by a largely faceless and interchangeable roster of "rock jocks". But even more significantly, the "More Music" format took programming decisions out of the hands of DJs and put them into the hands of consultants and back room programming executives.

From around 1970 until the mid-1980s, 2SM dominated Sydney commercial radio. At its peak in the late-1970s it was the highest rating and most profitable station in the history of Australian radio. It epitomised and defined commercial AM Top 40 radio practice around the country for fifteen years and long after 2SM itself lost popularity, its successful programming formula was still influencing its FM band successors.

The introduction of new AM station, 2WS in 1978, and FM stations 2Day and Triple M at the start of the 1980s saw 2SM's glory days slowly come to an end. In the early 1980s the station retained reasonable ratings with contemporary music formats and slogans such as "Rock of the 80s", "More Music" and "The Power".

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