Australia Day
The Hot 100 idea for a poll was conceived by Triple J producer Lawrie Zion in late 1988 . The idea was to run a listener poll to determine their 100 favorite songs of all time. This idea was apparently taken from a Brisbane community radio station called 4zzz who had previously developed a Hot 100 in 1976.
The original Hot 100 became a national broadcaster. Listeners were required to write their 10 best picks on the back of an envelope or other creative methods such as paintings. The first-ever poll was manually counted and was aired on Sunday the 5 March 1989 between 10 am and 6 pm.
As a result, Triple J was forced to change the name to ‘Hottest 100’ to avoid legal action with 4zzz.
Eventually, the write-in poll was transformed to phone voting, then to SMS and finally progressed to online voting through the Triple J website.
This year, the Hottest 100 count down will take place a day after Australia Day on the 27 th of Jan. The decision was made to move the date due to controversy with some politicians accusing the ABC of seeking to delegitimize Australia Day.
Despite the date change, the hottest 100 is still used to celebrate Australia Day as well as the favorite songs of Australians throughout the year. The poll sees more than 2 million votes every year and has quickly grown to world’s largest music poll since its launch in 1989.
What are you doing this Australia Day Long weekend?
Join us at Left bank Melbourne for a four day weekend filled with tunes, beverages, and some great Aussie dishes!
