Chemist Warehouse Remix plays hot adult contemporary music with hourly national news, sport and weather, but its studio output reaches listeners in an unusual place: over the speakers of a discount pharmacy chain. It is a fully produced radio station built to soundtrack shopping trips as much as commutes.
A Station Born From a Retail Partnership
The station launched on September 3, 2018 as a joint project between the Australian Radio Network and Chemist Warehouse, according to a B&T report on the announcement. ARN's Emma-Jayne Owens called it "a natural progression of the long-standing partnership between ARN and Chemist Warehouse," while Chemist Warehouse's Mario Tascone described it simply as an evolution of the retailer's in-store music offering. Hosts Brendon "Whippy" Dangar and Zoe Sheridan ran breakfast, workday and drive shows across the week, giving the retail feed live-hosted segments rather than a silent playlist loop.
First to Combine In-Store Radio With DAB+
What made the launch notable inside Australian radio circles was its format, the first station to combine in-store retail audio with a simultaneous DAB+ digital broadcast and iHeartRadio distribution. That structure let the same feed reach both shoppers walking through more than 400 Chemist Warehouse locations nationally and ordinary DAB+ listeners tuning in at home, with national news, sport and weather updates running hourly from 7am to 10am and 3pm to 6pm on weekdays. ARN estimated the in-store audience alone at around 1.8 million customers a week.
From Two Melbourne Chemists to a National Chain
The retailer behind the station has its own retail disruption story. Brothers Jack and Sam Gance bought their first pharmacy in the Melbourne suburb of Reservoir in 1972, and after leaving the Amcal chain in 1997 they launched their own brand, My Chemist. The first store carrying the Chemist Warehouse name opened in 2000, introducing a big-box discount format that reshaped Australian pharmacy retail and grew into a chain of more than 540 stores across Australia and New Zealand.
Radio Built for the Aisle, Not Just the Car
Chemist Warehouse Remix sits in a small category of branded retail radio that treats a store visit the way traditional stations treat a commute, with hosted segments, news breaks and a consistent adult contemporary rotation designed to hold attention during a five-minute errand rather than a forty-minute drive. It remains one of the more visible examples of a retailer building an actual broadcast partnership instead of licensing a generic instore playlist.