Tamworth radio station 2TM to broadcast 10 days of country music

Tamworth’s commercial radio stations 2TM and 92.9FM have announced a sponsorship deal with Optus that will see the networks celebrate Australian country music in place of the cancelled Toyota Country Music Festival.

2TM programmers had previously decided they would be exclusively playing Australian country music over 10 days in January, symbolising the duration of the music festival. Radio hosts will also be conducting interviews with artists throughout the 10 days, both in station and over the phone.

In addition to the programming, 2TM will be broadcasting the 2021 Golden Guitar Awards ceremony, scheduled for January 23 at the Tamworth Regional Entertainment and Conference Centre.

“We are extremely proud that we can still celebrate Australian country music with our listeners as usual and in a prolific way over the 10 days of what would have been the 49th festival,” station general manager Nikki Kenwrick said in a statement.

“It is extremely important to the station’s heritage that 2TM continues to do what we have always done for Australian country music and its artists.”

Over on sister station 92.9, a five-day ‘requestival’ will be held, giving listeners the opportunity to phone in and request a song. One caller each day will win a Samsung phone from Optus. Both the country music programming and requestival will commence from Monday (January 18).

The Toyota Country Music Festival announced back in September that it would not be proceeding with its 2021 event in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Tamworth Region Mayor Col Murray said councillors “faced a difficult decision” when choosing to cancel the festival.

“It is hard to believe that we have had to make this decision, and it most certainly has not been an easy decision to make. Still, the impacts of introducing COVID-19 to our community far outweigh the impacts cancelling the festival would have on our community,” he said.