But over 20 years ago …
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Not commercial radio?
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It’s as valid a nomination as middle age professional radio presenters getting a nomination for best new talent at the Logies.
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Kyle & Jackie O and Ray Hadley & the Continuous Call Team proclaimed the best on-air teams on Australian commercial radio. Other odd winners were Grant Denyer is the best newcomer, and (while she truly is a lovely person) Melissa Doyle won best music presenter.
Good to see Brian Carlton win best talk presenter provincial, and Ron Wilson getting best FM newsreader.
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i98 Wollongong breakfast co-host (and former Home and Away star) Christie Hayes won best newcomer (provincial).
Also I find it odd the AFL Grand Final features twice in the same category (best sports event coverage). Triple M’s coverage of Richmond’s 2017 premiership was the metropolitan winner, while K-Rock’s call of West Coast’s thrilling win last month was the non-metropolitan winner.
If anything, Ray Hadley + Kyle & Jackie O are really some of the worst presenters/programs Australian commercial radio has to offer.
Grant Denyer probably shouldn’t have been eligible for a “Best Newcomer” nomination let alone actually winning the award, because that’s taken the focus away from younger and arguably more deserving talent.
Personally I think Melissa Doyle should be a Sunday-Thursday Seven News Sydney presenter alongside Michael Usher but that’s a debate for another topic.
Nonetheless, I’m happy to see her, Ron Wilson (as you mentioned) and various other talented people in the radio industry winning ACRAs.
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K Rock’s call would have also been 2017 Grand Final. Nominating period was up until April 2018.
The future of the industry is concerning if the Lucky $5 note can win Best Station Promotion.
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Creativity in which store gets planted with the $5 note? Might be embarassing if it was in the change from particular types of businesses.
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I’m not sure what specific game it was they won for, but it was not this one. I assume it was the off-season/pre-season/JLT-series or whatever it’s called these days. The eligibility period expired in May this year, and the nominations were out a good month before this year’s game was even played.
Kyle and Jackie O is consistently Sydney’s #1 FM Breakfast show, so they must be doing something right. I assume Hadley rates very well as well (don’t really look at the AM ratings tbh). I dislike both shows too, but I also dislike My Kitchen Rules and it’s one of the highest rating shows on television.
He is, however, a newcomer to commercial radio, and therefore meets the criteria. Younger talent at metropolitan stations may be less experienced, but are nevertheless competing with the likes of Denyer, Fevola Trickett, and others on a daily basis. The category isn’t ‘Most Deserving Newcomer’ nor is it ‘Best Young Talent’. It’s ‘Best Newcomer - On Air’.
There are younger Producers competing against Sacha French, just as there are younger presenters competing against Kate Richie, and younger shows competing against Kyle and Jackie O or Kate Tim and Marty. At the end of the day, in the Metropolitan category, they’re all in the same competition. The categories are ‘best’ not ‘most deserving’.
To be fair, it is the country category where budgets and personnel are severely limited. They were up against ‘What’s Behind My Bush’ and ‘Lucky Duck’. There’s only so much you can really do in Burnie, Dubbo or Bathurst.
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Yeah, he’s a consistent #1 and got 20.2% in the last survey.
I can’t argue with that, but it still doesn’t feel right to me given that Grant is certainly no newcomer to the broadcasting industry.
One I’m still trying to get over is how 90.9 Sea FM’s “$30k Buried Treasure” actually managed to win an ACRA for Best Sales Promotion a few years ago.
Hopefully there was some other more impressive stuff as part of the promotion than this rather cheaply produced-looking TV ad, that’s all I can say! 
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exactly. Same with Melissa Doyle from the other year. And how she’s best music personality, when it’s all bloody pre-recorded, is beyond a joke.
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It probably doesn’t officially count, but a quick search of The Canberra Times via Trove finds that Melissa Doyle did a week of fill-in presenting on Canberra’s FM 104.7 breakfast show back in May 1995, in addition to her role for Prime Television at the time.
So technically, you could say that Mel did some work on commercial radio (if only for a very short stint) 20 years or so before her current role on Smooth FM!
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How did Macquarie go with the “World First” Format award for Talking Lifestyle?
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Thanks both for pointing it out. A huge blunder from the organiser.
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I think technically, the eligibility states <2 years full time employment in Australian commercial radio
I take your point, but if the audience can’t tell the difference, what really is the issue…? Almost all of the workday on almost all FM stations are voice tracked in some capacity - is there really that big a difference if it’s 5 minutes before or 5 days before?
Maybe the other nominees were really bad that year 
To be fair, the ‘new’ announcers at a metropolitan station that don’t have some kind of broadcasting experience would be few and far between
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that it’s homogenized, scripted, talent-less crap would be the start of my complaints.
But then if Stephen Cenatiempo and Kyle and Jackie can keep winning awards for the rubbish they dish out, then a trained monkey could win an ACRA.
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So the way I’m reading it, if Peter Cundall left ABC Radio Hobart and was then snapped up by Grant Broadcasters to do a Saturday morning gardening segment across their heritage network, he would then be eligible for best newcomer at the ACRA Awards as it would be his first time working on commercial radio?
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I guess technically, yes. The ACRAs guidelines for the category say only that the entrants have no more than 2 years working at a commercial radio station. You need to provide a CV as ‘proof’
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Finalists in the 31st annual Australian Commercial Radio Awards (ACRAs) were announced today with Australia’s top radio presenters competing for the coveted Best On Air Team in both the AM and FM (Metro) categories.
Two-time winners in the FM category Kate, Tim and Marty (Kate Ritchie, Tim Blackwell & Marty Sheargold, NOVA Entertainment 2016, 2017) are amongst the finalists that include six-time winners Kyle Sandilands and Jackie Henderson, (The Kyle and Jackie O Show, KIIS 106.5, Sydney); Jonesy and Amanda (Brendan Jones and Amanda Keller, WSFM, Sydney, winners in 2012 and 2014); Fifi, Fev & Byron (Fifi Box, Brendan Fevola & Byron Cooke, Fox FM, Melbourne); Chrissie, Sam & Browny (Chrissie Swan, Sam Pang, Jonathan Brown & Dean Thomas, NOVA Entertainment, Melbourne) and Kennedy Molloy (Jane Kennedy & Mick Molloy, Triple M Network, SCA).
The Metropolitan Best On Air Team AM title will be a contest between Ray Hadley’s Continuous Call Team (2GB, Sydney, Macquarie Media Limited, winners for the past two years); Breakfast with David Penberthy & Will Goodings (FIVEaa, Adelaide, NOVA Entertainment); Drive with Mark Allen & David Schwarz (Macquarie Sports Radio, Melbourne, Macquarie Media Limited); Laurel, Gary & Mark; (Laurel Edwards, Gary Clare & Mark Hine, 4KQ, Brisbane, ARN), and 2GB’s first female news/talk duo, Afternoons with Erin Molan & Natalie Peters (Sydney, Macquarie Media).
The competitive Best Talk Presenter category features three finalists from Macquarie Media Limited – Ray Hadley (2GB), Ben Fordham (2GB) and Neil Mitchell (3AW) up against Luke Bona (Triple M Sydney, SCA). Fordham and Bona are also in the running for two other awards - Best Current Affairs Presenter and the Brian White Award for Radio Journalism.
In the Best Entertainment Presenter category, NOVA’s Kate Ritchie is up against her drive show co-host Tim Blackwell and Sam Pang (NOVA 100, Melbourne), with Lawrence Mooney (Triple M Sydney) also in the running.
Best Music Presenter finalists are Melissa Doyle (smoothfm); Gordie Waters (KIIS 106.5, Sydney); Tim Lee (hit92.9 Perth, SCA) and Kent “Smallzy” Small (Nova Network).
The metro finalists for Best Newcomer on Air are Paralympic Gold medallist Dylan Alcott (Hit Network, SCA); comedian Zoe Norton-Lodge, known for her work with The Chaser team and The Checkout (Triple M, Sydney); Jack Post (Gold 104.3, Melbourne) and Rebecca Morse (half of the Bec & Cosi breakfast show on Hit107, Adelaide, SCA).
Awards will also be handed out for the best podcasts in three categories - Best Original Podcast (Branded); Best Original Podcast (Unbranded) and Best Radio Show Podcast (Metro and Non-Metro).
Entries were received from 260 metropolitan and regional radio stations across Australia. Stations outside the metropolitan areas are well represented at the ACRAs with more than 200 finalists from country and provincial stations. This year the gala black-tie event will be held at the Royal International Convention Centre Brisbane on Saturday, 19 October and will start at 6.00 pm (red carpet 5.00 pm).
The chief executive officer of Commercial Radio Australia, Joan Warner, said: “Live radio is one of the most demanding of mediums, so congratulations to all the talented finalists across metropolitan and regional Australia on their outstanding work. The radio awards keep getting bigger and better every year. We look forward to hosting the 31st annual event in Brisbane.”
Organised by Commercial Radio Australia, the national awards cover 39 categories. Winners are announced in each category across four areas: metropolitan, provincial, country and syndication/production company and encompass all areas of commercial radio broadcasting including news, talk, sport, music and entertainment. The ACRAs differ from television’s Logie Awards in that they are peer judged by industry members. The ACRAs follow the Radio Alive 2019 conference, which will be held at the Royal International Convention Centre on Friday 18 October.
A complete list of the 2019 ACRAs finalists
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