I’m still very suspicious of ARN’s longer term plans for Cruise.
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I guess you could say they don’t plan to switch Adelaide at the same time as Perth.
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I’m predicting they will roll out the Perth & Adelaide rebrand altogether. Likely as early as January 5.
For 96FM, Mix102.3 and Cruise1323 it’s really just a case of, “ripping off the band-aid”. Don’t worry about pre-promote. Just do it and kick off the heavy marketing campaigns.
The bonus of doing it for KIIS1023 is they should also launch the new brekkie show earlier before the other shows return - so listeners can trial before switching over.
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Still you would think at least they would start playing promos on Cruise 1323 & Mix 102.3 that a change is coming soon.
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According to ARN Unveils 2026 Content Strategy: KIIS And GOLD Go National - ARN
- Adelaide’s Cruise1323 evolves into GOLD1323, with refreshed programming designed to attract a younger, highly engaged audience.
- New GOLD DAB+ stations will launch in Brisbane and Adelaide, completing the network’s national footprint
ARN is transforming Cruise 1323 to Gold 1323 and lauching GOLD DAB in Adelaide. I do not know if this is a mistake or not
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I would say this means O’Connell will be DAB-only in Adelaide.
I interpreted it as GOLD 1323AM in Adelaide will take Christian’s show, with the station taking the GOLD music log.
Only GOLD80s DAB+ Perth & GOLD DAB+ Brisbane will be the only digital stations taking Christian’s show, until ARN are ready to axe the GOLD96FM local brekkie show and replace with Christian.
Given the reversal of KIIS97.3 Breakfast, I doubt we’ll ever hear Christian 6-9am on GOLD96FM. The time difference will be too risky to have a pre-recorded breakfast show on a higher rating Perth station. It’ll kill 96 for sure.
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Seeing as Cruise is on DAB already, I’d assume it would be keeping the same simulcast arrangement.
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They should keep Cruise as a seperate DAB only station playing the current classic hits
They can still rebrand Cruise 1323 to Gold 1323 and put Gold 1323 as well on DAB+ playing same music log as Gold 104.3 and Gold 101.7
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Or have GOLD60’s & GOLD70’s (as well as their current GOLD80’s) DAB+ stations to cater for the Classic Hits lost listners… or, if they have the resources, simply call it, GOLD Classic Hits and run promos on 1323AM to tell listeners to tune in on DAB+.
But it’s a given. The Eastern states’ GOLD playlist will be heard on 1323AM Adelaide.
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I don’t think you bother rebranding the station to then not take O’Connell. It certainly would have made sense to me to keep it as Cruise on AM, and launch a digital only Gold station - but similar to their logic behind letting 4KQ go, they obviously view the AM audience as so difficult to monetise that they would make more money from selling the networked programming to a more national audience.
I’m not sold on it being an identical music format, while I’m sure they’ll take the same songs nationally during OC’s show, but I think it will still be a bit older than the FM Golds during music shifts.
A delayed breakfast would be a non starter I’d think. They should work with the delay and use it to blend the network and local shows,
4-6am Christian O’Connell (take the extra hour from 3am during DST)
6-9am Lisa & Russell
9-2pm - Local Daytime
2-4pm - Jonsey & Amanda (dropping an hour to keep a consistent slot year round)
4-7pm - Local Drive
7-8pm - Best of Christian O’Connell
They could then have “Gold 80s” take the shows in full delayed.
You know how stations usually speed up songs? Well I’m listening to Gold at the moment and they’re playing a version of “As The Days Go By” by Daryl Braithwaite which is noticeably slower than the version on the Edge album 
I think that’s because the playout system can backtime itself to hit a specific time mark.
Speed up or slow down is a way to achieve that.
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I concur. But this is ARN we’re talking about here.
Another, more likely view is that a reference to a “new” DAB+ station is a furphy (to reassure agencies and the like that they aren’t just on AM in Adelaide), and that 1323 will continue to be simulcast on DAB - just with a name change.
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Yes I think that’s probably it.
Steve Fitton will be back on Gold tomorrow for 2 weeks then he will be gone for good and focusing on his show on IHeartCountry.
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Gold 96FM has moved over today!
old logos still up as of 6am AWST (on iHeart, but website has new logo) but now being namechecked with their new name on air
(and theyve started with Gold by Spandau Ballet 
)
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Website has new logo but all the branding is still red. Hopefully it doesn’t stay half baked like the 6ix website caught between old and new branding
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