The full podcast interview with Alex Cullen. He starts with Christian O’Connell Breakfast on Gold 104 tomorrow (Monday).
Gold line up for the next 2 weeks
6-9am Jonesy and Amanda (SYD) / Christian O Connell (MEL)
9am-12pm Madigan
12-3pm Toni Tenaglia
3-6pm Steve Fitton
6-7pm JAMNation
7-8pm The Christian O Connell Show
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I listened to Christian O’Connell Show while having breakfast this morning. Alex joins in the conversation with Christian and Patrina and is quite a funny guy.
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Alex Cullen debuts on Gold104.7
Alex Cullen officially joined Melbourne’s GOLD104.3 and The Christian O’Connell Show this morning, sporting a black eye and after a hellish move from Sydney for the new role. He replaces Jack Post and will be the show’s resident sports guru.
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A typo I know, but I wonder how someone at Radioinfo didn’t know it wasn’t Gold104.7!
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He replaces Jack Post? Wow. Ok. ‘The Sports Guy’ and Christian? Ok. Not bad.
ARN’s plan to take Christian O’Connell national
Christian O’Connell wants to go national with his show. The bosses at ARN certainly think he has the appeal, and he has made no secret of his wish to expand the show’s live breakfast audience beyond the Melbourne market he has wooed and won over the past seven years. So, when will it happen?
Lauren Joyce, chief audience and content officer at ARN, tells Mumbrella that his potential to attract a live national breakfast audience hasn’t gone unnoticed.
Joyce says the move to national is an inevitable one.
“We certainly think that, yes, there is a life for the show outside of Melbourne,” she tells Mumbrella. “As to when that happens? You know we haven’t locked down any plans at this stage.”
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Surely if you’re Jonesy and Amanda you’re talking to Triple M right now. Surely…
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Unless ARN can keep A&J on similar money as what they’re getting now to do a national drive program… but given how much $$$ K&JO have soaked up, I’m guessing not.
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The thing is, the only way to go live and national with O’Connell (assuming we’re talking the big 5 metros) is:
Gold 104.3
Gold 101.7
97.3
Mix 102.3 or Cruise
96fm
Either that, or they’re talking DAB-only in at least Brisbane and Perth.
ARN can’t continue to ignore the fact that they are a station short in Brisbane and Perth to rollout both O’Connell and K&J. I’m quite over them trying to dance around and ignore that fact while teasing “national” breakfast shows.
To me, they should just focus on getting a proper Gold network up and running on FM in all 5 capitals, and put KIIS on DAB in the others outside of Sydney and Melbourne (and possibly Adelaide, where at least they do have 2 stations).
As my grandmother used to say “either piss or get off the pot”.
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Brilliant quote and sound advice for ARN. They need to get a move on with whatever they’re doing rather than letting everyone disect the pros and cons or what they might do.
They f**ked it up with K&J on KIIS. I don’t think K&J are the right show for Melbourne and Brisbane full stop - but it never has any hope of working if they let the commentators get in the ear of the audience and their own heads before they even launch. Apart from the content, the key failure with Melbourne was that they kept delaying the start date and didn’t launch into any other markets at the same time. This gave the narrative they even ARN weren’t confident - they needed to get their tech ready, then they needed to get Kyle ready, then they were just testing the waters in Melbourne. It gave everyone time to write them off before they’d even started, and built the pressure up so high that Kyle went to a new level when they launched and was more repulsive than normal. How was that ever going to work?
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ARN is quickly giving Gold101.7 the same ARN luck they gave to KIIS101.1.
Except for Sydney, it’ll be 2MMM which’ll have the last laugh when the audience follows across the dial when Christian joins.
Let’s grab the popcorn! ARN doing what they do best… all because of K&J’s overpriced deal.
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That’s a great take on it. Despite all the goodwill toward Christian (which K&J certainly didn’t have if we’re honest), there’s every chance if J&A are shafted in Sydney for a show piped up from Melbourne, that they still do exactly what Jase & Lauren did going to Nova and play the “we were shafted by an interstate show” card and drag the listeners across.
The interesting test will be to see how effective it is this time around. As you say, grab the popcorn if this eventuates.
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MMM Sydney would hrab J&A and adjust their playlist so quick the airheads at ARN would be spinning.
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No need to adjust the playlist - MMM forgot how to be a rock station eighteen months ago.
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ARN need to get their heads out of the bubble. Not everyone in Melbourne know about K&J. And I guarantee that a lot less in Sydney know about Christian. The very same way nobody in Melbourne knew nor cared about Alan Jones and Ray Hadley (and Macquarie Radio never took that gamble - thankfully for 3AW).
Long standing 2WS listeners are already annoyed at the name change. Losing J&A will be the final nail.
It would be a different story if Gold101.7 didn’t have such a big heritage-ness in Sydney. J&A’s listeners are extremely proud and passionate about that show. As many of them still say, “2WS is my station”.
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I think you’re 100% right. Less people in Sydney would have even heard of Christian than in Melbourne with K&J.
ARN need to stop being so delusional or they really will sink the ship.
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Fuck all people knew about Christian in Melbourne seven years ago either, and yet with intelligent programming and a bloody hard working, loveable host and sidekicks, here they are - consistently near the top or at the top.
Tell me now, if Amanda or Brendan decided to finish it all up today, that’s it no more show, who does ARN have ready to replace them?
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Yes, but it took a long time for Christian’s show to get where it has in Melbourne, and it did it through hyper-localism.
Firstly, I don’t think ARN has that much time up its sleeve to repeat that process for Sydney, and indeed other markets.
And secondly, localism was a big factor in Christian’s success in Melbourne, and that won’t be an option for Sydney…
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If that happens, the obvious choice is to pipe Christian into Sydney and do everything to make it work. But just saying if they don’t want to go, and end up on a rival station, it could be another poor outcome for ARN.
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