shortWWWave

After a number of years known as "HOFM", Hobart's original commercial radio station has returned to its original name from 1931 of 7HO. This goes against the trend of radio stations in Australia to drop the digits from their callsigns which reflect the state in which they are broadcasting (in this case, the seven refers to Tasmania).

The Fiji Broadcasting Corporation has taken leaps and bounds to improve its website, over the last year, and now all of its six radio stations are streaming over the internet. This now gives the rest of the world a great opportunity to hear from a country that has been rather inaccessible on the radio bands up until now.

The stations are:

Radio Fiji 1: News, weather, culture, religious programs in Fijian and English. [Stream]

Radio Fiji 2: News and information in Hindi. [Stream]

Bula FM: Popular local and international music, in Fijian. [Stream]

Radio Mirchi: Hindi pop music. [Stream]

Radio Fiji Gold: 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's music, targetted at the 35-60 age group. [Stream].

2Day FM: youth station, playing a wide range of modern music. [Stream]

Sydney's Radio 2SM, currently languishing near the bottom of the ratings, with a faily half-hearted talk format, was once a ratings powerhouse in the city, commanding large audiences with a very successful Top 40 format.

2SM: A "Super" Story documents the history of the station, from its beginning in 1931, through to its low-rating head of a network that encompasses most of New South Wales and Queensland today.

Anyone wanting to listen to the station's current incarnation can click on one of their three streams:

• MP3


• Windows Media


• Realplayer

After 69 years on air (note: German text), Radio Sweden will be closing its German shortwave and mediumwave broadcasts on March 30th, 2008.

According to the report, the German service has been particularly successful on the internet, so a podcast and on-demand service will remain at www.radioschweden.net. This popularity has come at the expense of the shortwave broadcasts, however, where listener numbers have dropped dramatically.

Radio Sweden's German podcasts are available here.