2MG will celebrate its 75th birthday with a public open day this Saturday, including guided tours with current and former station staff and a chance to meet the men and women behind the on-air voices.
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Yesterday (Tuesday, July 2) was the 75th anniversary of the station’s first broadcast, made in July 1938 with what would be a very basic station by today’s standards.
The Mudgee Broadcasting Company Pty Ltd had been registered in late 1937, with a capital of £5000 and directors Harry W. Milton, Eileen E. Milton. Ernest W. Hodges and George H. Thomson.
By 1958, the ownership of the station included London’s Daily Mirror with a 51 per cent stake, Loneragans with 34 per cent and Harry Milton with 15 per cent.
A change in ownership laws in 1958 required the Daily Mirror to sell its stake, and local businessmen Ron Camplin, Cyril Blowes, Jack Roth, Doug Rhodes and Keith McCully purchased the station, each taking 20 per cent of the shares.
Over the ensuing decades, the station was purchased by Ron Camplin’s Camplin Broadcasters, Janet Cameron’s Grant Broadcasters, Linter Broadcasting and current owners Broadcast Operations, who purchased the station in October 1987.
Over the years, 2MG has updated its transmission facilities, shifted frequency slightly from 1450 to today’s 1449, and upgraded from 78rpm records to 45rpm singles, to the playback of commercials on tape-based carts, to CDs and now to playing music and commercials from computer hard drives.
Today, 2MG has the latest in commercial production facilities, along with state of the art digital audio playback.
The program line-up features local voices including Craig Bassett’s breakfast program and Chris Mills of an afternoon, along with programs from the statewide Supernetwork such as the nationally syndicated John Laws Morning Show.
Free tours of 2MG’s broadcast facilities will take place this Saturday between 9am and 1pm, and 2MG will hold a sausage sizzle lunch between 11am and 1pm, with sausages available by gold coin donation to the Mudgee District Hospital.
A reunion dinner of former staff will be held on Saturday night.
