About Triple M Mackay

Triple M Mackay

Triple M Mackay — callsign 4RGM — is a commercial radio station broadcasting to Mackay and the Whitsundays in Queensland, Australia on 98.7 MHz FM, with a dedicated repeater on 92.3 FM in Airlie Beach. Part of Southern Cross Austereo's Triple M network, it plays an adult contemporary and rock format — "Good Times and Greatest Hits." It first broadcast on 21 September 1999 as 98.7 Sea FM, established by RG Capital, and was rebranded as Triple M Mackay and the Whitsundays in December 2016 alongside 29 other regional stations. Its studios are at Level 3, Suite 3, 123 Victoria Street, Mackay QLD 4740 — the Suncorp building, home to both Triple M Mackay and its Hit Network sister station. No website URL is asserted in this profile's frontmatter; the station streams via the LiSTNR platform.

Overview

Triple M Mackay and the Whitsundays is the rock-and-greatest-hits station for Queensland's sugar capital and its island playground: Mackay, the city built on sugar and mining services, and Airlie Beach, the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands — 74 island wonders on the doorstep, the charter boats and the backpackers, the departure point for the Great Barrier Reef. Its published contacts are +61 7 4953 5353 and studio line 13 27 10, and its breakfast team can be reached at jayanddave@triplem.com.au. The callsign 4RGM encodes its history: 4 for Queensland, RG for RG Capital, M for Mackay — the founders' initials, preserved in the licence.

History

The station first broadcast on 21 September 1999 as Sea FM Mackay, established by RG Capital — Reg Grundy's regional radio group — as part of the Sea FM network's Queensland rollout. The late 1990s were the high tide of regional FM expansion in Queensland: new licences in Mackay, Rockhampton, Cairns and Townsville, the Sea FM brand spreading up the coast from its Gold Coast birthplace. It was later sold to Macquarie Regional RadioWorks and then the Southern Cross Media Group, becoming part of Southern Cross Austereo. In December 2016 it was rebranded as Triple M Mackay and the Whitsundays, part of SCA's transformation of 30 regional LocalWorks stations into the Triple M network — a move explicitly aimed at taking on triple j in the 25-39 demographic with the first nationally branded commercial radio network in Australia. The strategy was commercial as well as competitive: a national Triple M brand, SCA told shareholders, would deliver "cohesive impact and greater overall brand value" — taking "the group of highly successful and meaningful stations to a whole new level under the Triple M banner." Triple M Mackay was among the stations named in the announcement, alongside the conversions in Rockhampton, Toowoomba, Cairns and Kalgoorlie. For Mackay's listeners, the change was branding deep: the Sea FM they knew became the Triple M network's Queensland outpost, with the local breakfast untouched.

Programming

The station's line-up is classic regional Triple M: Jay and Dave for breakfast (weekdays 5:30–9am), Mickey D from 9am to midday, Troy Ellis from 3 to 4pm in the afternoon, the Rush Hour with Dobbo and Elliott from 4 to 6pm, Triple M Nights with Dave Gleeson from 7 to 10pm, and Triple M Aussie Homegrown with Matty O from 10pm to midnight. "Good Times and Greatest Hits" — the adult contemporary rock format, skewed to the 40-plus, that the Sea FM network had already been playing in its later years. Jay and Dave are the station's local face: the breakfast team Mackay wakes up with, reachable at jayanddave@triplem.com.au, the voices of the sugar city in the morning — local radio at its most local. Behind them, the network's national talent — Dave Gleeson on nights, Matty O on the homegrown hour — gives the station the Triple M sound its audience expects: rock, comedy, and the blokey warmth that is the network's signature.

Mackay's radio history adds context. The city had AM heritage in 4MK — the commercial station that served the sugar city for decades — before the FM revolution of the late 1990s brought Sea FM and Hot FM to the dial. The arrival of 98.7 Sea FM in September 1999 gave Mackay's 40-plus audience their first local FM adult-contemporary station, and the format has held the demographic ever since. The 2016 Triple M rebrand was the latest chapter, not a rupture: same frequency, same audience, new network identity.

Coverage & Audience

Triple M Mackay broadcasts on 98.7 FM to Mackay and on 92.3 FM to Airlie Beach and the Whitsundays. Its audience is the region's rock-and-greatest-hits listener: the sugar workers and miners, the tourism operators and the island hoppers — the 40-plus demographic that grew up with Sea FM and stayed for Triple M. Mackay is a working city: the sugar mills that have defined it for a century, the coal mines of the Bowen Basin inland that made it rich, the port that ships it all out. When the coal price booms, Mackay booms; when it busts, the town feels it. Through the cycles, 98.7 has been the constant — the station the miners and the mill workers grew up with. The Whitsundays are the playground: the islands, the reef, the sailing. Between them, 98.7's audience spans the two Queenslands — the industrial and the idyllic — united by the greatest hits.

Ownership

The station is owned by Southern Cross Austereo (Whitsundays Broadcasters Pty Ltd) and is part of the Triple M network. Its sister station is Hit 100.3 Mackay — the former Hot FM — with both stations based in the Suncorp building on Victoria Street in Mackay. The duopoly is the standard SCA regional model: Hit 100.3 for the young, Triple M 98.7 for the 40-plus, one building on Victoria Street, the whole commercial audience covered. Between them — plus the ABC's Tropical North service and the community stations — Mackay's dial is one of regional Queensland's most complete. Level 3, Suite 3, 123 Victoria Street — the nerve centre of commercial radio in the sugar capital.

The Whitsundays repeater on 92.3 FM deserves emphasis. Airlie Beach and the islands are a distinct market from Mackay — tourism, hospitality, the charter industry — and the 92.3 signal gives them their own Triple M. The Airlie Beach Festival of Music, for which the station runs ticket promotions, is the region's signature event: the mainland festival on the edge of the islands, and exactly the kind of good-times territory Triple M owns. From the sugar mills to the sailing regattas, 98.7 and 92.3 cover the region's twin economies — and the station's promotions, from the Airlie Beach Festival of Music tickets to the breakfast show's local giveaways, keep it embedded in both.

Digital Presence

The station streams via the LiSTNR platform at triplem.listnr.com/mackay. From Sea FM's 1999 launch to the Triple M era, 98.7 has been Mackay's rock station for a quarter of a century — good times and greatest hits, from the sugar city to the islands. The Sea FM name served Mackay for seventeen years; the Triple M brand has carried it since — and the 4RGM callsign, with RG Capital's initials, carries the founders' memory through every rebrand. Whatever the jingle, the frequency is the constant: 98.7, Mackay's own, and 92.3 for the Whitsundays — good times and greatest hits, from the sugar city to the islands, on the Triple M network.