Remember the old days when you listened to the radio on your radio? When your presenters were faceless, and you had to rush home to make sure you didn’t miss your one chance to hear your favourite band play live on air?
We love music
what is triple j?
Remember the old days when you listened to the radio on your radio? When your presenters were faceless, and you had to rush home to make sure you didn’t miss your one chance to hear your favourite band play live on air?
For fans of triple j, those days are well and truly over. triple j is radio (covering over 98% of the nation in big FM stereo), television (triple j tv), print (jmag) and on-line (www.triplej.net.au). On-demand, wherever and however you want it.
Some things haven’t changed though. triple j – in all its incarnations – is still all about the music. WE LOVE MUSIC. We love music made in bedrooms and garages around Australia by people we’ve never heard of. We love new music from our favourite bands from here and all over the world. We love music that we unearth (www.triplejunearthed.com), that we see live, and that we discover online (sometimes before the music has been officially released). We play new music because we like it and we think you will too. We play it first, sometimes months before commercial radio.
While we’re on subject of commercials, you should know that triple j is completely AD-FREE. We ain’t pimpin’ no-one’s shit (unless it’s our own), no matter what the price.
triple j is for young Australians. We’re not so interested in the rest. Whether it’s bringing live music to all corners of the country, or uncovering the stories that matter to you, triple j is here to satisfy all your musical and cultural needs.
how it all began
It was a hot summer's day when triple j first began broadcast on 19 January 1975 in Sydney, launching onto the airwaves, and straight into controversy by playing as its first track, the then-banned Skyhooks track 'You Just Like Me 'Cause I'm Good in Bed'. In the beginning the station was called 2JJ, and it broadcast on the AM band, which is a fossil yard now, and on 1 August 1980 the station moved to the FM band and renamed itself 2JJJ.
In 1989, triple j began the first of its re-launch campaigns, a plan to expand into all the capital cities of Australia, including Newcastle in NSW, and in so doing became Australia's only national youth broadcaster.
From there, the station expanded yet again to 18 rural centres across Australia in January 1995, the first stage in a plan to reach a total of 46 regional centres of the country. Since the end of 1996, triple j has been a truly national network, broadcasting to places such as Broken Hill, Dubbo, Grafton, Taree, Wollongong, Cairns, Rockhampton, Ballarat, Bendigo, Alice Springs, Kalgoorlie, Wagga Wagga, Mildura, Warrnambool. The list goes on and on...
Believe it or not, dozens of smaller communities have actually funded their own triple j transmitter. It makes us very proud.
triple j tv was launched as jtv in 2006. We thought it was high time that there was a show on tellie for people who care about music, who are interested in issues that affect their lives and want to see it everywhere. Switch on to see new music, interviews, current affairs, documentaries and comedy that takes triple j's irreverence, independence, authority and attitude, and brings it to life in a whole new dimension.
www.triplej.net.au kicked off in 1995 with only four pages, but lots of enthusiasm. Today the pages number over 10,000. It looks rather fetching, don’t you think? But www.triplej.net.au is not just a pretty interface. It’s your one-stop shop for access to everything we do. Listen! Ogle! Download! Stream! Find out the details of that track you’ve been loving, check out our presenter’s blogs, or relive an artist’s live studio performance when it suits you.
jmag, the hard copy version of triple j, first hit the shelves as a quarterly mag in 2005. It went monthly mid 2007 and we STILL have trouble cramming all the reviews, interviews and juicy goss from triple j into one issue.
alive and kicking
For a lot more than a decade we've been bringing live music alive to air every week with Live at the Wireless. Don't miss the sound bytes of our Live at the Wireless sessions every Monday night at 8pm and Sunday afternoon at 5pm, without fail!
As early as 1977, we began recording and releasing bands and artists on black shiny vinyl. By the time the 90s rolled round our "Live at the Wireless" compilations were already legendary.
In addition, we have our annual One Night Stand. It’s more of a three month affair really, when we get seduced by regional towns right across the land, and repay the favour by heading to one of those towns with a bunch of Australia’s best bands in tow. That’s one hot date.
You can bet that wherever there’s live music, we’ll also have some tv cameras and photographers trailing along so it can all be seen on triple j tv and online.
Supporting the Australian music scene is important to us which is why we spend a lot of time recording and promoting Australian artists and live music. Check out the triple j gig guide to catch the latest acts triple j is recording and touring around the country.
find us
on your radio
FREQUENCY FINDER
Tune your dial to triple j in your part of Australia. Just type in your region and/or postcode, and select your state below.
Postcode
Town/Suburb
State All ACT NSW NT QLD SA TAS VIC WA
on your tv
triple j tv is available as a free to air broadcast on both ABC1 and ABC2. In order to tune in to ABC2 you will need a digital set top box. More information on receiving digital tv can be found here.
triple j tv is also available via the internet as a vodcast and direct download. For more information on downloads visit the ABC video podcast help pages. You may also watch segments over the internet as streaming video here.
Getting to know Tom & Alex
Tom Ballard & Alex Dyson are your new breakfast hosts in 2010 find out more about them by listening to their podcast. 2009 Album Poll
Find out what you voted as the top ten albums of 2009. View the results.