April 2021 - GabeMcGrath.com

LISTEN: Today in history, Hitz FM got hacked

The youth station’s 5th broadcast went quite smoothly until the day Hitz FM got hacked.

And if you scroll to the bottom of this post- you can HEAR the recording!

We’d tweaked the music to add a bit more hiphop and alternative to the mix. We were smashing out the big pop/dance tracks of early ’95 like The Bomb (The Bucketheads), Living in Danger (Ace of Base) and the Hardfloor remix of Yeke Yeke [Mary Kante]. We had fantastic Jeep Renegade vehicles for giving out prizes. And the Hitz team were living on a very healthy (?) diet of Jolt Cola and Kettle Chips.

But one day in the final week of the broadcast, a little “beep” changed everything.

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The DNA of Hitz: Press Gang

For many Aussie kids in the 80s, watching ABC TV after school was an addiction. Monkey, Star Blazers, The Goodies, Inspector Gadget, Secret Valley, Astroboy, Metal Mickey, You can’t do that on Television. And then, there was Press Gang.

This show hit our screens just as the 80s were ending. A story of a bunch of schoolkids making their own little splash in the world of media. Becoming more sucessful than the adults imagined. Hmm, reminds me of another story…

Today’s post is the first of a series called The DNA of Hitz. We’ll be saluting shows, films and books with strong echoes of the Hitz FM story.

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Remembering Hitz One CD (1998)

On this day in 1998, the Hitz CD series had a ‘reboot’ of sorts. No more ‘Original Hitz’. No more single CD releases. The Hitz One CD modernised the series, going to a two disc format, and adding an exclusive megamix with each release.

Today we look back on this historic CD, and I’ve invited a few of the team who put it together to share some memories.

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