About 6WSM 91.3 FM Sport FM

6WSM 91.3 FM Sport FM

Overview

91.3 SportFM (ACMA callsign 6WSM) is a sports-formatted community radio station broadcasting on 91.3 MHz FM in Western Australia. It holds the community broadcasting licence for the Fremantle RA1 licence area, covering the cities of Fremantle, Cockburn and Melville in Perth's southern metropolitan corridor, and its signal is heard across the wider Perth metropolitan area. The station is owned and operated by Western Sports Media Inc. — the callsign 6WSM reflects that name, with the numeral 6 denoting Western Australia — and it broadcasts from studios in Hamilton Hill that it shares with Radio Fremantle (6CCR), the area's long-established general community station.

SportFM's identity is built entirely around sport, which makes it unusual within Australian community broadcasting: rather than mixing music, talk and specialist programs, it offers live sport coverage, sports talkback and sports news around the clock in spirit and across the day in practice. It has used the slogan "Perth's Voice for the Sports Community", while its website currently brands it as "Perth's Sports Leader". The station positions itself as the home of grassroots and state-level Western Australian sport — particularly the West Australian Football League (WAFL) — alongside national codes, giving airtime to competitions and clubs that receive limited coverage on commercial sports networks.

The Fremantle RA1 licence area is one of the metropolitan community licence areas in Perth, and it supports two distinct community services: Radio Fremantle's general variety format and SportFM's single-minded sports format. The two stations not only serve the same licence area but share the same Hamilton Hill studio complex, a co-location that underlines how firmly SportFM is embedded in Perth's community broadcasting sector rather than in the commercial sports-media industry.

History

The organisation behind SportFM was established in 2003 and began test broadcasts that year under a Temporary Community Broadcasting Licence on 90.5 FM, a frequency it timeshared with Capital Radio, the aspirant seniors' station now known as Capital 101.7FM. That arrangement ended when the regulator allocated 90.5 FM to Capital on a full-time basis and awarded Perth's 100.9 FM frequency to Noongar Radio; SportFM ceased transmission and its path to a permanent licence had to restart.

The station returned to the air with further test transmissions on 101.7 FM in 2008. During its temporary broadcasting period it also attracted regulatory attention: in September 2009 the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) found that the station had breached the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 by broadcasting advertisements, and by exceeding the five-minute-per-hour sponsorship limit, in a broadcast of The Run Home sourced from Melbourne's 1116 SEN. That program is no longer carried by the station.

SportFM ultimately secured a full-time community broadcasting licence for the Fremantle RA1 area — the same licence area served by Radio Fremantle — and launched as a permanent station at 12:00 am on 2 February 2010 on 91.3 MHz, the frequency it has used ever since. It subsequently moved into shared studio facilities in Hamilton Hill alongside Radio Fremantle, where it remains based. A business listing for the station gives its address as 153 Rockingham Road, Hamilton Hill.

Programming and Content

SportFM's weekday schedule is anchored by three live, locally produced programs: a live breakfast show (Sports Breakfast), a live mid-morning show and a live drive-time afternoon program. Recent Sports Breakfast podcasts show the program hosted by Jacob Landsmeer and Wayne Clark, featuring guests ranging from WAFL coaches and players to racing analyst Digby Beacham and a UK sports correspondent — a typical mix of local and national sporting conversation.

Around those anchor programs sits a deep roster of specialist shows, many with a distinctly Western Australian "heritage" flavour. Titles documented in the station's schedule include WAFL World, The SMCA Cricket Show (covering local metropolitan cricket), The Football Fix, Before the Footy, Pure Footy, The AFLWrap, Wednesday Wheels for motorsport, Track and Field Tonight for athletics, Talking Horses for racing and The Gloves Are Off for combat sports. A Saturday-morning Talking Dockers program devoted to the Fremantle Football Club has also been part of the line-up. Newer additions heard in the station's podcast feeds include NBL Hub, covering National Basketball League basketball, and the Wednesday Perspective discussion show.

Live match coverage is central to the format. The schedule includes regular live broadcasts of the WAFL, the National Rugby League, Sheffield Shield cricket and A-League football, and the station's website confirms it broadcasts Perth Glory A-League home matches at HBF Park, along with selected away fixtures. Hourly news updates are sourced from Australian Independent Radio News on weekdays between 6 am and 6 pm, and the station supplements its local production with selected syndicated content from RSN 927 in Melbourne and 2GB in Sydney. Its online news service mirrors the on-air priorities, running stories on AFL trades and list changes, Fremantle Dockers coaching appointments, Australian cricket tours and local WAFL matters, written for a Western Australian audience rather than syndicated from a national wire.

SportFM is also recognised as a training ground for young broadcasters. Its documented presenters, past and present, include former ABC commentator Glenn Mitchell, former Australian Test cricketers Kim Hughes and Wayne Clark, Colin Minson, Peter Vlahos, John Townsend, Corbin Middlemas, Ben Cameron, Brett Sprigg, Adam McGrath, Emma Payne, Jacob Landsmeer and Ashleigh Nelson, among many others. Players, coaches and administrators from local, interstate and overseas clubs regularly appear as guests.

Audience and Reach

The station's licensed service area is Fremantle RA1 — the City of Fremantle, City of Cockburn and City of Melville — although its 91.3 FM signal and online stream reach sports fans across the Perth metropolitan area and beyond. Its audience is defined less by geography than by interest: followers of WAFL football, community and state-level cricket, soccer, basketball, racing and athletics who want coverage of competitions beneath the AFL and national-league level, as well as local angles on the big codes. As a community licensee the station does not participate in commercial radio ratings, and it does not publish official audience figures; none are claimed here.

Digital Presence

SportFM's website, sportfm.com.au, carries local sports news stories — heavily weighted to AFL, WAFL, cricket and soccer, as its name promises — along with live streaming of the broadcast. The station maintains an active podcast presence through Omny Studio, publishing programs including Sports Breakfast and a general SportFM podcast feed; podcast directories list several hundred episodes uploaded since December 2023, with new episodes appearing most days during the sporting seasons. This digital output extends the station's reach well beyond its FM footprint and gives its volunteer and emerging presenters an on-demand audience.

Ownership and Organisation

The licence is held by Western Sports Media Inc., an incorporated association, and the station operates under the community broadcasting sector's rules — including the sponsorship limits that ACMA enforced against it during its temporary-licence era. On air, the station is supported by a long list of mostly Western Australian business sponsors, which have included WA Football, Retravision, HIF health insurance, SKG Radiology and SEDA College WA, alongside local firms in real estate, health, building supplies and hospitality. Like other community stations, it relies on a mix of staff, volunteers and aspiring broadcasters to produce its live schedule.

Contact and Availability

Listeners can hear 91.3 SportFM on 91.3 MHz FM across Fremantle and the Perth metropolitan area, and worldwide via the live stream and podcasts at sportfm.com.au. The station's studios are at 153 Rockingham Road, Hamilton Hill, Western Australia — shared with Radio Fremantle — and its listed telephone number is (08) 9418 7700. Programs, news and contact links are published on the station's website.