About 4RGL 91.9 FM Fresh FM Gladstone

4RGL 93.1 FM Fresh FM Gladstone

Overview

4RGL is the licensed community radio service for Gladstone, a port city and regional centre on the Central Queensland coast. The station broadcasts under the on-air name 91.9 Fresh FM — the frequency carried in its own branding, its Community Broadcasting Association of Australia (CBAA) station profile and its mobile app — and it presents a Christian community format built around uplifting music and spoken-word programs. It broadcasts around the clock, seven days a week, to listeners across the Gladstone Region from purpose-built studios in the suburb of Telina.

Fresh FM is a generalist community station with an explicitly faith-based character. Its programming is designed to be family friendly and encouraging in tone, mixing contemporary Christian and positive mainstream music with talk, teaching and local content. As a community licence holder, the station exists to serve the Gladstone community rather than a commercial market, and local voices, local churches, schools and community groups are central to its output.

A note on frequency: although this profile's heading follows the station's WorldNM listing name, every current reference to the station itself — its app, its CBAA profile, its coverage map and independent listings — identifies the service as 91.9 Fresh FM on 91.9 MHz. Listeners in the Gladstone area should tune to 91.9 FM.

History

The station has a long history in Gladstone under a different name. For many years it broadcast as Rhema FM, part of the family of Australian Christian stations affiliated with United Christian Broadcasters (UCB) that carried the Rhema name. Station staff describe the service as having more than 30 years of history in the city, a lineage that stretches back through the Rhema era.

For much of that time the station lacked a permanent home. In December 2009 the Gladstone Observer reported on its search for a new location under the headline "New home needed for radio station". The search ended when the station purchased land from the Uniting Church at Telina and constructed its own studio facilities on the site. The station moved into the new building on 25 May 2013.

The move coincided with a complete relaunch. In June 2013 the station ended its Rhema FM identity and reopened as Fresh FM, marking the change with a public open day that was covered by the Observer. The new name reflected a fresh start in a building of its own, and the Fresh FM branding has been used ever since.

In November 2016 the station expanded its news offering through an agreement with Seven Queensland. Announced on 7 November 2016, the arrangement saw Fresh FM begin simulcasting the Central Queensland edition of Seven News at 6pm each weeknight from 11 November 2016, giving the community station a professionally produced regional television news bulletin in audio form.

More recently, the station has worked to rebuild its local presence. In April 2024 Christian Media & Arts Australia reported that Dan Coates, who had been programming Fresh FM remotely for two years from 99.9 Live FM in Townsville, had relocated to Gladstone with his family to take a hands-on content role. Coates identified licence renewal as the first priority, followed by revitalising the station's community connection, expanding youth training and developing a community outreach hub based at the station.

Programming and Content

Fresh FM broadcasts 24 hours a day. According to the station's own description, it plays music and programs that carry uplifting messages, aiming to offer hope and encouragement to listeners at all hours. Music is the backbone of the schedule, drawn from contemporary Christian artists and positive mainstream material, interspersed with short spoken segments, teaching and ministry content consistent with the station's Christian ethos.

Local presentation anchors the broadcast day. Dan Coates presents the Drive program and fronts occasional outside broadcasts, including from local markets, which take the station out of the studio and into community spaces. The weeknight simulcast of Seven News's Central Queensland edition at 6pm provides a dedicated regional news block covering the issues of Central Queensland.

The station also runs an end-of-financial-year appeal, a fundraising fixture common to listener-supported Christian broadcasters, and uses its airtime to promote local church, school and community activities across the Gladstone Region.

Audience and Reach

Fresh FM's licence area is the Gladstone Region, centred on the city of Gladstone and taking in surrounding communities of Central Queensland's coast and hinterland. The station publishes a broadcast coverage map through its website, and its signal is aimed at households, workplaces and drivers across the region.

The station does not publish audited audience figures, and community radio stations in regional Australia are generally not included in commercial ratings surveys, so no verified listenership numbers exist for Fresh FM. Its reach can instead be understood through its model: a free-to-air FM signal broadcasting continuously, supplemented by online streaming and a mobile app, directed at the general Gladstone community with a particular connection to the region's Christian churches and their congregations.

Digital Presence

The station's website, freshfmgladstone.com.au, is its main online home, carrying station information, its coverage map and access to its live stream. Fresh FM also maintains the 919freshfm.com.au domain, which has hosted station blog content, including an article marking 100 years of Australian radio in November 2023.

A dedicated mobile app, 91.9 Fresh FM, is available for listeners who prefer to stream on their phones. The app description restates the station's mission: to be Gladstone's local community station, broadcasting uplifting music and programs 24 hours a day as a non-profit organisation supported by donations, memberships and sponsorships. The station is also active on Facebook, where it has announced programming changes such as the Seven News simulcast, and its stream is carried by online radio directories.

Ownership and Organisation

Fresh FM is a not-for-profit community broadcaster. It holds the ACMA community broadcasting licence for Gladstone under the callsign 4RGL and operates without a commercial owner. In line with the Australian community broadcasting model, the station is sustained by a combination of listener donations, membership contributions and a limited amount of sponsorship announcements, rather than by advertising revenue.

The station is staffed primarily by volunteers drawn from the Gladstone community, supported by a small leadership team. Dan Coates, who moved to Gladstone in 2024, looks after programming and content and presents on air; his stated plans include increasing training opportunities for local young people in radio and media, and establishing a community outreach hub at the station's studios that can accommodate volunteers and students serving the local area.

Before its 2013 relaunch, the station was affiliated with the United Christian Broadcasters network of Rhema FM stations; the Fresh FM name and identity date from the end of that affiliation.

Contact and Availability

Fresh FM broadcasts on 91.9 FM across the Gladstone Region, Queensland, and streams live online through its website and mobile app, so it can be heard anywhere with an internet connection. Listeners can hear the station at any time of day or night.

The station's studios are located at 10 Uniting Place, Telina QLD 4680, on the site it purchased from the Uniting Church and developed in 2013. A published business listing gives the station's phone number as (07) 4979 3543. Community members interested in volunteering, becoming a member or supporting the station can make contact through the station's website and social media channels.