North Gosford based Radio Five-O-Plus (93.3FM) commenced broadcasting Central Coast News’ Weekly News 5@5 in August, in a new partnership aimed at bringing high quality local news direct to listeners across the Central Coast and beyond.
Radio Five-O-Plus Station Manager Allan Maddox says, “We have been waiting to secure our own source of local news for many months now, and are delighted to add the excellent weekly local news summary 5@5, presented by David Abrahams to our program schedule.
“It suits our needs perfectly for the weekend, and we know our listeners will begin to rely on this new service of local news, sport and cultural events, to stay informed.
From the North Gosford studios of Radio Five-O-Plus, the station has grown since its humble beginnings from rooms above a Umina chemist in 1993 with a 10-watt transmitter. It now broadcasts with a powerful 2000 watts from its Kariong tower all across the Central Coast, throughout the Hunter, Lake Macquarie, northern suburbs of Sydney and some areas of the Blue Mountains.
The station’s live internet streaming service also reaches out to many new listeners – anyone with a computer!
CCN’s David Abrahams is thrilled with the partnership saying “The Weekly News 5@5 has gained a good following over the last three years and I’m very pleased that community radio listeners will now be able to tune in.
“We’ve delivered 5@5 in a video format directly to 10s of thousands of inboxes and social media accounts The stories are produced directly from our local newsroom by our journalists.
“Local listeners can pop over to our website to gain more information about a story that interests them, be that sport, local politics, events or good news stories”
There has already been positive feedback from 93.3FM listeners from the first weekend of CCN Weekly News. Karen of East Gosford said “it was a refreshing change to hear local news” and another listener Graham from Umina phoned saying “it was good to catch up with what was happening on the Coast”.
The keyword for the new shared affiliation between Central Coast Newspapers and Radio Five-O-Plus is… community. The paper’s masthead publication Coast Community News prides itself on its outreach to the Central Coast community.
Similarly, Radio Five-O-Plus on 93.3FM has been serving its local community for 29 years and looks forward to celebrating a great 30th anniversary in August next year!
As well as revenue raised from sponsors and members, in 2019 93.3FM received a community funding grant which enabled the upgrading of all its broadcast facilities to state-of-the-art digital equipment, modernising both presentation studios with simplified cabling and much improved audio quality and soundproofing.
Radio Five-O-Plus boasts at least 600 members, with a staff of 30 volunteer presenters and administrators, and a member-elected committee of seven that meets regularly to monitor not only station quality control and audience feedback but to remain abreast of all digital and associated platforms for continuous integration of their automated programming.
The new service can be heard on 93.3FM each weekend; four times on Saturdays at 6:30, 8:30 & 10:30am & 3:30pm, and three times on Sundays at 8:30 & 10:30am & 12:30pm.
Streaming link for your out-of-area friends and family: http://www.fiveoplus.com.au/Listen.htm
Primary source: Media release Radio 50 plus, August 15, 2022.