3MBS is a fine music community radio station in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1975, 3MBS was the first FM station in Victoria and led the way for the introduction of community radio in Australia. 3MBS passionately supports fine music, especially Melbourne musicians and composers, and is the only locally-based classical music radio station in Victoria. 3MBS relies on listener support in the form of subscriptions, donations and bequests. 3MBS was conceived by music fan and radio engineer Brian Cabena in 1968 to address a lack of classical music being played on the radio. Cabena wrote a letter to The Age newspaper, calling for interest in a listener-run classical music radio station. 200 people attended that first meeting and founded the Music Broadcasting Society (MBS) of Victoria. In 1974, the McLean report recommended that TV should be removed from the internationally recognized FM band to allow FM broadcasting to begin. MBSV members travelled to Sydney to help establish 2MBS which first went to air in late 1974. The following year in July saw the launch of 3MBS in Melbourne. Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana has the honor of being the first piece of music played on this new station, 3MBS. As we still do, 3MBS relied on subscriptions from listeners to fund the operation of the station, and for a time, only divulged programming information to subscribers. Numbered items related to printed program notes and announcers would refer to the music by number only (a practice which was abandoned in 1976). 3MBS continues to produce a program guide, which is delivered to all subscribers in either printed or email format. In 2007 3MBS relocated from Brian Cabena’s original shopfront at Kew to our current home at the Abbotsford Convent. 3MBS is proud to be part of this beautiful cultural precinct. Looking to the future, 3MBS built the new station to make the most of digital technology and features digitally linked studios and a state-of-the art performance studio and control room, with which 3MBS broadcasts and records local, national and international musicians. Official website of 3MBS 103.5 FM is www.3mbs.org.au
