We are eternally grateful, believe me!
How were they ever going to roll out to Newcastle though? ARN don’t even have a station there? Again, I think it’s a slip up that demonstrates that ARN’s whole future strategy made the assumption they were going to get SCA stations.
I do wonder if ARN have made themselves a takeover target with this whole debacle. Would love to see Nove Ent. step up and grab 97.3, 96fm and Mix 102.3 and flip them to Smooth.
Its not doing to work. The duo are dead wood in Melbourne. Its been a complete disaster.
KISS Melbourne need to axe the show and implement a low cost budget music format with local news / weather and traffic reports to mitigate the damage.
But I think Kyle might get a payout if they pull his show off the air in Melbourne. Clearly their is something in his contract stating the 10 year deal must included Melbourne.
If Kyle and Jackie O really want to put that type of content on their show. They should just get off radio and onto a streaming platform where there are a lot of like minded people on there. Would be a win win for both MFW and Kyle and Jackie O. MFW gets what they want by that duo being off public airways and Kyle and Jackie O get the freedom to get what content they can air without ACMA regulations (but still following the streaming platforms’ terms of service)
But they won’t have a 20 million dollar pay cheque on streaming.
Given that Victoria is usually regarded as the most progressive state in the country, this is an utterly ridiculous description of Melbourne. Not wanting to listen to people talking about anal sex over your Weetbix and morning coffee does not make you conservative.
Correct, they began broadcasting into Melbourne (in the 6-10am slot) on 29th April 2024.
It’s outrageous that they’re paid that much in the first place 
User Power FM Muswellbrook or work out a Nine-ACE style agreement for ARN to operate New FM.
98.1 comes in OK in the car.
Again, what did I say about rolling out KIIS into the regions? KIIS 98.1 anyone? Muswellbrook might be a good place to start, if they fuck it up, no big loss, except to everyone in the Upper Hunter.
The shareholders could have looked at every other time someone tried networking a breakfast show on commercial radio in this country and could have seen the very predictable outcome well before they even uttered a word on the airwaves in Melbourne.
I really don’t think that would be the strategy. I think they assumed they would have control of the SCA stations in Newcastle
My take is K&J signed the $200m contract knowing it was never going to work for the full ten years.
K&J most probably want a hefty payout from ARN to end the contract.
ARN will say “but you can’t go on radio for x amount of years”.
K&J will be fine with that, cause they’ll use the payout to build their own studio and they’ll then stream their show - with marketing all paid for from the ARN payout.
When it was announced in 2023 that they would be networked into Melbourne, I knew it would fail. Most people could see the writing on the wall from day one. Sydney management should have known better.
But I never predicted that we would see fuck up after fuck from Kyle and the KIIS management.
K&J’s 10yr contract is more of an insurance policy to ensure that the duo don’t jump ship until they’re ready to retire from radio. ARN cannot afford to lose the two and become what they once were.
KIIS is not going to keep the lights on for ARN for much longer, the Gold Network is ARN’s way forward after the past year.
ARN needs a M&A at this point. SWM or the like, more scale. It’s too small by itself.
The perfect size for SCA to buy out… 
Not much point in SCA buying them out with the 2 station rule. I hope Nova takes them over, perhaps in conjunction with Nine/ACE. There could be some interesting options there. Nova could pick up 97.3, Mix 102.3 and 96fm. Nine could keep KIIS in Sydney and Melbourne and simulcast on DAB in the other cities, 5AA to Nine, ACE could pick up Gold Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, and flip 4BH to complete an eastern Gold network.
Could it also be possible that ARN’s KIIS-affiliated regional stations will end up being sold off or their formats and programming changed if this is the case? Also what would happen to ARN’s KIIS Network frequencies in Sydney and Melbourne? Would they just go off-air altogether, or would it be occupied by some Classic Hits station from ACE Radio? For that to happen though, they would need to convert to FM, which would mean discontinuing the AM services. So in Sydney it could be 2UE moving to 106.5 FM, or in Melbourne it could be either Magic1278 or 3MP moving to 101.1 FM, for example.
If the Gold Network is ARN’s way forward, then they would essentially need to rebrand the regional Gold-affiliated stations to Gold with the frequency next to it, e.g: Gold102.3 Ballarat or Gold94.9 Ipswich (a way for ARN to finally bring the Gold name into the Brisbane market). Also for AM stations affiliated with the Gold Network they would probably also cop a rebrand to Gold, surely.
For regional areas that only have a KIIS-affiliated ARN station, could they just change the formats and programming for those and rebrand them to Gold? Surely now Gold should be the flagship station of ARN, not KIIS. I can only imagine the day K&J leave ARN, the KIIS Network would be completely dissolved.
*These are just my opinions and views and they should not be taken seriously as if it was news happening right now. This is just a rough piece of speculation and any information here should not be seen as confirmed. I am not one of those press release guys.
Speculation is what we’re all about 
They are currently dragging the network down. I’m sure ARN would happily like to renegotiate that terrible deal they did in 2023.