About ROK FM

ROK FM

ROK FM — "The Rok 95.5" — is a commercial FM radio station serving Parkes and the surrounding Central West of New South Wales. Broadcasting on 95.5 MHz under the call sign 2ROK, it is owned by the Broadcast Operations Group (Super Radio Network) and plays a contemporary hit music format aimed at the 18–39 demographic. It is the sister station of 2PK (1404 AM), Parkes' heritage AM station.

Overview

The station is licensed to Parkes, New South Wales, and transmits on 95.5 MHz on the FM band. Its format is contemporary hit music — described in the network's market profile as "Adult Best Music from the 80s, 90s & Today" — targeting the 18–39 demographic. The station's studios are at PO Box 295, Parkes NSW 2870, phone (02) 6862 1122 — shared with 2PK, reflecting the single Parkes operation behind the two stations. The web addresses rokfm.com.au and therok.com.au are listed as candidate domains for the station. They are presented here as attributed candidates rather than load-verified official addresses, in line with this profile's sourcing policy. The 2ROK call sign mirrors the station's "Rok" branding, following the Australian convention of the initial "2" denoting New South Wales.

Regional commercial radio licensees in Australia operate under ACMA local content obligations — requirements to broadcast material of local significance, reflecting the licence areas they serve. For the Parkes duopoly, this means the stations' local programming, news and community information aren't just good practice but licence obligations: the local voices that distinguish ROK FM and 2PK from pure network relays. The stations' shared Parkes studios are where that localism is produced — the breakfast shows, the local news, the community announcements that connect the Super Radio Network's formats to the Central West.

ROK FM appears in online radio directories and streams through aggregator platforms. Its web presence is modest, consistent with BOG's regional FM stations, which typically maintain a light digital footprint centred on the live stream and local information.

History

ROK FM operates as the FM sister station to 2PK, Parkes' long-established AM station, within the Broadcast Operations Group's Super Radio Network. BOG's FM network stations — including ROK FM — carry an adult contemporary and hot adult contemporary music format with syndicated programming, complementing the AM network's news-talk and classic hits format based at 2SM Sydney. The two-feed model is the architecture of the Super Radio Network: the AM stations taking the 2SM-based news-talk and classic hits feed, the FM stations taking the New FM Newcastle-based hot adult contemporary feed.

The station's call sign, 2ROK, is also carried on a translator service: 2ROK on 90.5 MHz broadcasting to Condobolin from Reservoir Hill, authorised in September 2006, extending ROK FM's reach into the Lachlan district west of Parkes. The translator operates at 164 watts EIRP from a 25-metre antenna, a small relay filling the coverage gap between Parkes and the Lachlan River towns.

Programming and Content

ROK FM plays contemporary hit music — "Adult Best Music from the 80s, 90s & Today" — aimed at the 18–39 demographic. As part of BOG's FM network, the station carries the network's hot adult contemporary format with syndicated programming, alongside local content from its Parkes studios. The format positions ROK FM as Parkes' hit music station, complementing 2PK's news, talk and information offering for the 39+ audience. The demographic split is the logic of the regional duopoly: two stations, two audiences, one market — the younger listeners getting the hits on FM, the older audience getting news and talk on AM.

Parkes itself gives the station plenty to talk about. The town of around 10,000 people is famous for the CSIRO Parkes Observatory — "The Dish," the 64-metre radio telescope that received the Apollo 11 moon landing television pictures in 1969 — and for the annual Parkes Elvis Festival, held each January, which draws tens of thousands of visitors and has made the town synonymous with the King in Australia. The surrounding district is wheat and sheep country, and the station's local content serves the farming community's information needs alongside the music format.

Coverage and Audience

ROK FM broadcasts on 95.5 MHz FM to Parkes and the surrounding Central West, with a translator on 90.5 MHz serving Condobolin from Reservoir Hill. The Parkes licence area covers the town and its agricultural district — wheat and sheep country stretching toward Condobolin, Forbes and Peak Hill. The station also serves the drive-through audience on the Newell Highway, the major north-south route that passes through Parkes. The 18–39 target demographic makes ROK FM the younger-skewing of Parkes' two commercial stations, competing for the hit-music audience against the community stations and the ABC.

The Parkes radio market includes the community station 2LVR Valley FM (97.9, serving Forbes and Parkes), giving listeners a community alternative alongside the BOG duopoly. Within the commercial band, the 2PK/ROK FM pairing covers the demographic waterfront: news, talk and adult music for 39+ on AM, contemporary hits for 18–39 on FM.

Ownership

The Broadcast Operations Group was built by Bill Caralis around the Sydney talk station 2SM, growing over decades into one of Australia's largest regional radio networks — 47 stations as of March 2026, spanning regional New South Wales and Queensland, plus DAB+ digital stations in Sydney (Fun Super Digi, Dance Super Digi, Gorilla Radio and Zoo Super Digi). In December 2024 the group expanded again, taking over the stations of Coastal Broadcasters in Far North Queensland. The network's two-feed architecture — the AM stations on the 2SM-based news-talk and classic hits feed, the FM stations on the New FM Newcastle-based hot adult contemporary feed — gives its dozens of stations a consistent format backbone with local programming from their regional studios. Caralis died in July 2024 at the age of 81; in October 2025 the network appointed its inaugural CEO, Rhys Holleran, who resigned in March 2026 with Graham Mott named as successor. In September 2026, after months of speculation, the group announced that the network was up for sale, including all radio stations and fully owned studio buildings — a sale that would reshape regional radio ownership across two states, with ROK FM and 2PK among the stations affected.

Digital Presence

ROK FM appears in online radio directories and streams through aggregator platforms. Its web presence is modest, consistent with BOG's regional FM stations.

The Parkes Elvis Festival, held each January to celebrate Elvis Presley's birthday, is one of regional Australia's signature events — a five-day festival of tribute artists, street parades and rock'n'roll that fills the town and gives ROK FM's hit music format a natural local hook. The CSIRO Parkes Observatory's "Dish," the 64-metre telescope that brought the Apollo 11 moonwalk to the world's television screens, is the town's other claim to fame — and the subject of the 2000 film "The Dish." A hit music station in a town famous for Elvis and the moon landing has no shortage of local colour, and ROK FM's Parkes studios sit at the centre of it.

As ROK FM, "The Rok 95.5" plays the hits for Parkes' younger audience on 95.5 FM — the FM voice of the Super Radio Network in the Central West, alongside heritage AM sister station 2PK. From the Parkes studios on the Newell Highway to the Condobolin translator on Reservoir Hill, the station keeps the Central West's 18–39s connected to the current hits — the contemporary soundtrack of Elvis country.