I’m surprised to be honest that Jonesy and Amanda are moving away from Breakfast - to go into Drive. I know that the breakfast battle is highly contested. But I thought that they did alright?
I know nothing can stop the powerhouses of 2GB and KIIS’ Kyle and Jackie O and Smooth Fm, but aren’t they usually in the top 5 (ratings wise)?
Drivetime for Gold is 3-6pm? Where would Steve Fitton go?
even “alright” or well performing shows can get the chop in favour of the almighty allure of networking.
exhibit A: Jase and Lauren at KIIS 101.1
The change might have appealed to J&A from a lifestyle perspective… wouldn’t need to get up at 4am etc every weekday morning then.
And the fact it’s national. Although we’re getting a Melbourne show at breakfast.
Two wrongs don’t make a right ARN.
As radio advertising revenues continue to trend downwards, networks care a lot less about overall share. Instead, they obsessively focus on strong 25-54 cume numbers.
Unfortunately for J&A, they’re at the bottom of the pile when it comes to that metric:
-CUME % 25-54 SYDNEY BREAKFAST-
KIIS … 18.4%
NOVA …12.9%
SMOOTH … 12.5%
MMM … 6.9%
2DAY … 6.8%
2GB … 5.9%
GOLD … 5.9%
In Melbourne, though, it’s a different story for Gold.
-CUME % 25-54 MELBOURNE BREAKFAST-
NOVA … 17.2%
FOX … 13.5%
GOLD … 10.6%
KIIS … 9.5%
SMOOTH … 9.3%
MMM … 8.3%
3AW … 5%
I know the media gets excited about overall share, and they judge a station’s successes or failures on that metric, but decisions by networks are being made primarily on 25-54 cumes, which is why MMM Sydney passed on J&A, and what ARN would’ve based its decision on for the Christian move.
Are Sydney’s Gold 101.7 daytime annoucers heard on Gold Melbourne?
Gold’s daytime announcers have been networked since April.
I’m pretty sure this was not J&A’s decision to move to drive.
They were clearly punted. And this is the start of their way out.
The same happened with Marty Sheargold at 3MMM… and prior to that with Rosso at Mix/KIIS106.5.
The demotion from breakfast to drive usually means that management are waiting for your contract to expire so they can remove you completely from the lineup.
Don’t believe what you hear or read. This is the end of J&A at ARN. And it’s all thanks to somebody’s $200m overpaid failed negotiation.
No local CD. No local branding. No local workday (in parts). Now no local breakfast show.
While I do agree that it isn’t their decision to move to drive I dont think the $200m duo are to blame here. Blame Christian, same desire to be live nationally like Kyle (both happy to end local breakfast shows) and was probably promised this by ARN management during his negotiations. ARN not ending up with Triple M as planned have hampered things a bit especially as Jonesy and Amanda were probably going to be cast aside with WSFM to SCA.
I’m not saying it was… just that there is a positive to come out of it re not having the early starts anymore … and depending how much less they are being paid, they might not necessarily be that unhappy about it.. at 57 & 63 respectively they are not getting any younger.
I’m calling it now. Once their contract with ARN is up, J&A are off to Triple M.
I think the Perth situation makes what they’ve done in Brisbane more baffling.
ARN are correct to have “5 city metro KIIS network” as their top priority - it puts them on a level playing field for national ad sales to Nova and Hit, as much as just the East Coast is probably good enough for most buyers.
But, 96fm and a lesser extent Mix Adelaide shows they can do it with whatever music format they like, provided they have the nominal linkage back to the KIIS network through the shared branding and some shared programming.
The problem is, that for whatever reason, they decided to just do the exact opposite strategy in Brisbane. Instead of trying to convert 4KQ listeners to a broader 97.3 to keep them in the network, or a strategy of going DAB only, they’ve gone and made it an also ran CHR station with an ill fitting breakfast show.
The fact Gold can never realistically be a 5 city metro FM proposition, means it makes sense to make KIIS a 5 city network, even if it results in the 96fm weirdness - at least they have let it keep a good format.
I suppose though the only relevant question would be if Kyle and Jackie O’s show has spoiled the national advertiser pool outside of their shift and markets - but given their price tag, I think ARN really have no choice but to make the KIIS network their national one.
Well obviously we don’t know the terms - but the fact they’ve re-signed with ARN would suggest their contract was ending at the end of this year, and that no other network offered them a better deal to stay in breakfast.
If the plan was to let them walk, it seems they could have just done that on the same timeframe.
What? Their contract with ARN was up now. They just said that they have re-signed with ARN to do Drive. Yhey had thr option to move on now but thry chose not to do that.
I heard Gold 101.7 announcera refer to 101.7 so how does that not get aired in Melb?
As a person who hasn’t listened to the network, I will try to explain it this way.
It could be due to “smart networking” technology (like UK’s commercial radio networks), that a link will be aired live on one feed and another - pre-recorded - will be sent to the other feed for playout at the same time.
For a less sophisticated way to do so, start a link with “This is/You’re listening to…”, followed by frequency (or not), maybe one silent second and onto the rest of the link.
Does this technology exist in Australia at all to do this? Or did I get anything wrong?
Not sure how there is confusion around this.
Nova has done networked workdays for a while now and frequently use local tie-ins to each market.
So how do they use local station ids by announcers…just prerecord and insert them into the respective playlists for each market?
Correct. (You may notice a tone change as a result if the second option is used.)
You click on the right hand side of Zetta, click on the station you want to record into on the drop down list, Zetta loads that playlist. You then record your break for that station. Piss easy
My drop down box used to have 4 stations to choose from to record into. Others in my office had up to six.