Three D Radio is a community radio station based in Adelaide, Australia and located in St Peters, South Australia. Established in 1979, it broadcasts on 93.7 MHz across the greater metropolitan area of Adelaide and the surrounding rural areas, as well as a live stream via its website. Three D Radio is run by volunteers, with no paid staff and is funded by contributions made by its listeners and the very occasional grant.
History
Regular broadcasting began at midnight, 21 December 1979, on a frequency of 103.3 MHz. The first music heard on Triple M was a version of Tomorrow Never Knows by 801 Live, then Turn Up Your Radio by the Masters Apprentices. The first voice to be heard was that of Mandy Salomon whose brief introduction conveyed the incredulous excitement of the 500-strong crowd of supporters celebrating outside the studios. The on-air launch by Premier Don Dunstan followed. The Triple M callsign was purchased in the early 1990s by Village Roadshow, for their national network of stations under that name. Although the terms of the deal were not disclosed, the major cash injection allowed the station to purchase modern equipment and maintain running costs for quite some time. The station changed name to Three D Radio on 1 October 1993.
Format
There are over 60 diverse programs going to air each week to an average cumulative audience of over 110,000 listeners. Three D Radio is run by the PMBA, or Progressive Music Broadcasting Association. They are committed to playing contemporary, progressive and alternative music and support the local music and arts community in a way that few other Adelaide radio stations do. One way is via the Sound Lounge program where local bands play live to air from the Three D studios. There are no playlists. Announcers are free to choosethe music that they present; however, there are strict quotas which ensure that content is at least 40% Australian music, of which half is local South Australian releases and a quarter is local unsigned material. Another quarter of music content is from female artists, who historically have been under-represented in broadcast music.
