Smooth Vintage plays it simple: David Bowie, The Beatles, ELO, Elvis, The Rolling Stones, Supertramp, on a continuous loop with no talk breaks to get in the way. Launched by Nova Entertainment in September 2022 on DAB+ in Sydney and Melbourne before expanding to streaming, it is the digital-only sibling of Australia's smoothfm network, built specifically for listeners who want the 1960s and 70s rock canon and nothing else.
Three Rebrands to Find the Right Sound
Smooth Vintage's parent network took a winding road to get here. It launched in August 2005 as Vega, a talk-and-music format aimed at baby boomers that never found its audience, pulling under 2 percent of the Sydney and Melbourne markets. After a brief stint as Classic Rock from 2010, Nova relaunched the network as Smooth FM in May 2012 with Michael Bublé fronting the campaign, swapping talk for a music-first easy-listening format that finally clicked with listeners.
A Spinoff Built for Focus
Where the main smoothfm stations grew into adult contemporary territory over the years, eventually adding Robbie Williams as the network face in 2020, Smooth Vintage stayed narrow on purpose. Rather than blending eras, it isolates the classic rock and pop canon of the 1960s and 70s into its own always-on stream, a format choice that lets the flagship stations chase a broader contemporary audience while this digital offshoot keeps the deep catalogue intact for listeners who want it specifically.
DAB+ Gave It Room to Exist
Stations like Smooth Vintage only make commercial sense because of DAB+ digital radio, which lets a broadcaster run a tightly focused niche stream without needing to win an entire FM licence and audience on its own. Nova has used that same digital real estate for siblings like Smooth Relax and Smooth 80s, each carved out to serve one specific mood rather than asking a single station to do everything.
Why Tune In
For listeners who want The Beatles, Bowie, and the Stones without a breakfast show talking over the intro, Smooth Vintage delivers exactly that: a tightly curated, always-on trip through rock's most enduring decades, no detours into anything released after 1979.