Although it may be inferred, the article actually did not suggest that Kavalee and Coleman would replace H&A, but rather that the network was just considering them for a show.
I strongly doubt that Ed Kavalee and Abby Coleman will be replacing Hamish and Andy.
Firstly, there is no confirmation that Hamish and Andy want to reduce their radio commitments - their new TV show is already in production and apart from taking a single day off a couple of weeks ago, has not interfered with their radio commitments. I would also think they are unlikely to do another TV show that takes them away from home for long periods of time given that Hamish now has a young family to consider. On the flip side, while H&A havenāt been all of the golden ticket that SCA were hoping for, they are by no means performing badly, and I believe they are producing the most cohesive drive show in the country.
Secondly, SCA love producing their drive show out of Melbourne, and have been doing so since the start of 2005. This is because they have setup the production team etc for the show in Melbourne - when Dan & Maz did drive, they had to move to Melbourne from Sydney to do the show. While it might be possible to move the production to Sydney if they really wanted to, it seems like a lot of effort to go to if they were to use Kavalee for the show, given that he is currently Melbourne based (split with Brisbane).
I think two options for Ed & Abby that are more likely are:
Drive on Triple M - replacing Merrick Watts (show is currently based out of Sydney and has never gained any real traction, being pulled from the regional stations at the end of last year).
Breakfast on 2Day FM - controversial to replace the breakfast show again, but Rove and Sam have made next to no change to the ratings of their show or the station, so I would be no real surprise if they got axed at the end of the year. I think Ed and Abby would be a good fit - they both have somewhat of a profile from HYBPA in recent times, but not so much that they will immediately turn off half the audience, what appears to be some good chemistry from when they are on HYBPA together, as well as several years of experience in metro breakfast radio. It would also have the advantage of not being an existing show moving into the slot, meaning that there would be no risk of new listeners feeling left out, which I think was part of the problem with Dan & Maz making the move from drive.
More talk about Rove and Sam? Surely they must be on their way out? Sea FM Central Coast smashed their survey. Itās clearly Rove and Sam that need to go. Canāt be the music as Sea wouldnāt be doing as well as they are. Bring Bree and Gawndy to Sydney!
The results of metro radio ratings Survey #6 will be released next week, so I think that 2DayFM will be waiting until then before making a decision on the future of Rove & Sam.
There are more issues with 2day fm then just Rove and Sam and we cannot really compare the results of Sea fm to 2day fm.
Firstly 2day fm is the third CHR station in a market with 3.5 stations when you include the Edge 96.1. Sea Fm is the only CHR on the Central Coast and owns the 18-39 market.
Music wise Sea fm has a more rock skewed playlist to 2day fm and if they were to adopt the Gold Coast log for Sydney they would be encroaching on Triple M territory.
Bre and Gawndy are an excellent team but would their results be much different to Rove and Sam, and or Dan and Maz? KIIS, Nova and The Edge have heritage breakfast shows so it would be an uphill battle for any new show. 2Day should have rebranded to Hit 104.1 as the current brand is worthless and probably has been since the Royal prank call. Their brand was only held together by Kyle and Jacki O when they were with 2day fm. Long story short when they axe Rove and Sam relaunch as Hit 104.1 to fit in with the branding of their other stations.
The Gold Coast log doesnāt have that much rock in it these days - maybe the occasional Powderfinger song or similar, but CHRās were playing that in the early 2000ās so it fits in well with the Hits and Old School.
Actually Hit 104 has a better flow to it then Hit 1041. Like Hit 105 and Hit 107.
Nothing will change as the people running SCA still believe the 2day brand has value. Fox still has it as they are #1 CHR station in Melbourne. They should go all in like Nova and then on their network shows they can then refer to Hit. As a network branding Hit, 2day and Fox just causes confusion.
Good call signs:
KIIS - great name for a radio station. Nova - pretty cool. Fox - like it. K-Rock- nice. Triple M - powerful. WaveFM - would suit the Gold Coast. Smooth - says it all. Hot Tomato - now that has my attention.
Bad call signs:
SeaFM - sounds like CFM on air. Confusing.
Hit104 - never liked it. Hit is a verb āto hit somethingā. Hits 104 makes more sense. Hot Hits 104 maybe. Just one Hit sounds weird. Hot 104? Thatās better.
Magic - Unfortunately most of the Magic stations have nothing magical about them.
I always found Hot Tomato to be āoh so randomā like āradioās soo quirky guiizā
I also think Hit is a (s)hit name. I also hate their logo and colours. The whole thing screams of a university design project, as if the network couldnāt afford to hire a proper company to re-brand and re-design. Hot sounds better, but I donāt think it would necessarily work any better.
At this stage, I think they should just bite the bullet and re-brand 2Day to Hit104.
I think re-branding Fox would be a disaster, but you never know what goes on in the heads of those over at SCA. Re-branding regionals to bring in-line is, IMO, also an awful idea, particularly the many markets where there is a heritage station that will be gone overnight, not to mention confusion in the ābleedā markets like Newcastle/Central Coast/Sydney etc.
But hey, Iām not pulling the strings over there.
Heritage names like NXFM and KOFM need to go, time to rip the band-aid off!!! What does āNXā and āKOā really mean to the people of Newcastle? I bet no one would even know what those letters stand for. Time to get rid of callsign letters out of the brand.
You know what, Iām going to agree that SCA may as well rebrand the Newcastle stations. Theyāre far away enough from Sydney that they canāt be received locally on a regular basis (I only really receive KOFM and NXFM in this location when thereās tropo about) in most areas apart from maybe the Northern Beaches.
But SCAās Central Coast stations should definitely keep their current names IMO. Sea FM still works and 2GO sounds quite local. Nova Entertainment still brand their Central Coast station as Star 104.5, probably because having a Central Coast version of Nova or Smooth would be too confusing so the same logic should apply at SCA.
KO, NX, GO, etc all sound super dated. But they all have heritage in the market, and thereās a lot to be said for that.
If GO are struggling now, I can only imagine what a name change will do.
What do I know, maybe a name/brand change is exactly what a dated, old, flailing radio station needsā¦