Why on earth would you risk the success of your breakfast show that is working in Melbourne by networking it to Sydney?
Because they clearly didnât learn from Jase & Lauren
3 Likes
Towards the end of the article it also says KIIS in Sydney has lost 20% of its audience since K&J started in Melbourne. Is that true? Wow. They are sinking.
Those graphs are telling. Advertising revenue rising at SCA and NE, and falling at ARN. Attention Board, is anyone home?
It would be the definition of insanity to beam it into Brisbane. Doing the same thing and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.
I think the only way out of this mess is for ARN to go under or be bought out.
3 Likes
Yep its true and they are sinking, dragging the whole company under now. If we look back to S2 2024 : KIIS Sydney share 11.0 (=2nd v 2GB 11.9) with K&J 16.1 (No 1 brekky v 2GB brekky 14.9). Now S3 2025 : KIIS Sydney share 9.3 (distant 3rd v 2GB 13.6 & Smooth 12.4) with K&J 12.5 (distant 2nd v 2GB brekky 16.7).
As i highlighted here recently the real killer for ARN is not only the massive flop of K&J in Melbourne, but the underperformance of the flagship K&J Sydney show with a big gap now opened up versus the much harder working/much cheaper 2GB breakkie show. Advertisers are voting with their wallets and its all there in the SMH article numbers.
What a gigantic clusterf..k by ARN.
4 Likes
Absolutely a cluster!
Donât they get it, expanding the show interstate also hurts the Sydney show. The Sydney audience wants a Sydney-focused show. Expanding to Brisbane will only make it even worse.
This is really turning into a disaster for ARN.
Their ad revenue is $13m behind NOVA and $11m behind SCA in 2025.
The strategy to buy Triple M failed.
The strategy to buy Nineâs talk stations will never happen as Labor easily defeated the Coalition at the last election, meaning the 2 station to a market rule is here to stay, for the next decade at least.
Whatâs left for ARN?
To network K&JO into Brisbane and to network Christian into Sydney?
To buy Capital Radio Network?
In the meantime NOVA and SCA are laughing all the way to the bank.
4 Likes
Dunc we geddit. You have done some good stuff in the past at ARN including snaring the Dynamic Duo. But the last couple of years have mostly been a real stinker.
2 Likes
Iâd love to really know just how involved Duncan was with K&J and their show⌠or is it DB who really does the talking?
And Iâm surprised the article didnât touch on the majority of his career, including more details of the previously struggling Mix Sydney and Melbourne? Iâd love to read more about his experiences and why those two stations just kept failing time after time.
I honestly cannot understand that there is anyone at all, in Sydney or Melbourne or anywhere else, who wakes up in the morning and says to themselves
âYawn. Sunâs coming up, 6am, another beautiful day on Earth. I want to listen to Kyle Sandilands right nowâ
Iâm being totally serious, I really cannot fathom it at all
2 Likes
Head injuries are a serious business.
1 Like
Iâm completely with you. I also felt the same about Alan Jones popularly. All that shouting and hectoring before youâve even had your Weebix sounds horrendous.
2 Likes
just shock jocks in general. iâve put 4BC on in the car when theres been a big news story and newsradio hasnât covered it. 9 times out of 10 itâs some rando screaming about leftys and woke culture. the funny thing is that the 9 talk stations have the power to be a big player in news if they went to a straight news format using the resources of nine, but they alienate a chunk of the audiance with the right wing crap
4 Likes
ARN has subsequently made enormous cost cuts over the past year, with $40 million in cutbacks, including mass redundancies, announced in February. Among the various on-air cuts have included Zach Mander and Dom Fayâs late-night show in Brisbane, while between 70 and 100 support roles at the network were confirmed to be on the chopping block, and long-time chief content officer Duncan Campbell was also moved into a consultancy role.
i am glad Crikey didnât put that behind a paywall because honestly it didnât tell us we didnât already know
3 Likes
The line in there from Kyle about how the show should have gone national in Day 1 made me think though.
How do we think that might have gone? Would K&J have tanked in other markets like they did in Melbourne. Or would it have taken a bit of the attention away from Melbourne and maybe reduced some of the negativity about their launch there?
FWIW, I think there would have been blowback in Brisbane and Adelaide as well, where successful local products would have also had to be axed, much like what happened with Jase & Lauren in Melbourne, but maybe not as significantly. Although who knows if Robin and Kip in Brisbane would have moved elsewhere like they did.
One of those hypotheticals we will never know, but it is interesting to ponder.
2 Likes
It would have been an absolute shit show in Perth if they tried to network K&J into breakfast on 96FM in its current format.
Theyâd have to fully blowup 96âs gold pivot and Kiisify 96 properly and we already have Nova for that with established brand trust. Mix and Triple M will have local benefits and tweak their formats to accomodate what 96 isnât playing.
The only way they could do it is via a DAB+ KIIS Perth station, make 96fm properly GOLD and I reckon they could possibly maybe get away with Christian as heâs not controversial and despite being networked could be spun as a point of difference etc.
Either way theyâve really dug themselves a huge hole in lots of markets
3 Likes
I get posting everytime Kyle has a walkout would make this thread very busyâŚ
But surely he understands he needs to meet some codes
1 Like
Well doesnât he forfeit th rest of this weeks pay then? Maybe KIIS have realised if they annoy him enough during the shifts they can save on the contract a bit 
he probably also understands that confected outrage and walkouts creates clickbait headlines and draws attention to his show which desperately needs listeners in Melbourne and is needing to reclaim lost listeners in Sydney (Even bad publicity is good publicity, etc etc) i.e. itâs all just a stunt
5 Likes
The segment ended with him saying he would be off the air until at least Monday: âEnjoy the rest of the week, guys. Arrivederci from me.â
How convenient, probably wasnât doing the full week anyway and they managed to get Cooper Johns as fill in after he âwalked outâ. Another round of best bits for Thursday and Friday then?
1 Like