Diary can reveal the nation’s leading metropolitan radio network, ARN, is investigating axing on-air presenters and replacing them with robotic, AI-generated hosts as part of an extreme cost-cutting purge that will irrevocably alter the face – and voice – of Australian radio.
And while the headline-making hosts have been critical to the company’s enduring success and are presumably safe (at least for now), behind the scenes, ARN has been asking listeners if they would “miss” – or even “care” – if the networks’ radio hosts and news, weather, traffic and sports presenters were eventually dumped and “replaced by an artificial voice”.
In fact, that particular line of inquiry is among a series of very troubling questions featured in a monthly survey fired off to key members of ARN’s national audience database last Friday.
I was sort of right? Cada was an experiment to see if it would work. They got caugh and copped some heat. But from the sounds of things, they don’t care.
They’ll roll these out regionally. Keep 1 local show but AI everthing else. Inflect K&JO and Christian on regional breakfast.
Poor move. You’ll drive people to streaming, local community stations and ABC.
What a fall from grace for ARN’s 96.1FM Sydney. From the days of The Edge 96.ONE with Mike E & Emma dominating breakfast, with owning the R&B scene, to completely scrapping it for a ‘national commercial triple j-like network’ with a tonne of live & pre-recorded shows, to absolutely nothing but K-Sera at Drive.
There is no longer any mention of a CADA Breakfast announcer, with no other shows. They’re even promoting, ‘What’s On’ as a show!?!
I would own it… and reverse it… and resurrect The Edge 96.ONE. Given Mike E is no longer with Emma, I’d re-hire him at ARN, put him with a cool female co-host (if Emma doesn’t want to leave 2Day104.1 brekkie) and bring back the quiet powerhouse which was The Edge 96.ONE.
… Actually, did ARN even mention anything about CADA at their recent upfronts? …
I wonder if the future for CADA going forward is more AI announcers like the much-loathed Thy? If so, god help actual human radio hosts who may face being replaced with AI announcers. Sad times ahead. Makes me wonder if ARN will implement AI Kyle & Jackie O in the future once the real duo actually leaves radio?
This is exactly what they should have done. Rebranded it as KIIS Extra or KIIS R&B using the same playlist as the Bounce on iHeartRadio, which is old school R&B from the 90s and 2000s.
It would surely rate higher than it does now outside of Sydney, where it’s getting thrashed by R&B Fridays.
Quietly being replaced around the country with Gold DAB+/Gold 80s.
I believe it’s only in East Coast markets now
ARN are cruel, but not 12kbs DAB+ cruel
To be fair to ARN, they don’t have enough DAB+ spectrum to carry Gold, Gold 80s and CADA in Perth or Adelaide, and CADA has a minuscule audience outside of western Sydney.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they eventually canned CADA and replaced it with a KIIS R&B extension, focusing on R&B from the 2000s.