They have also been playing Becky Hill’s new song “Side Effects” nearly every night on Smallzy’s Surgery since it was released on May 12.
As someone who likes her music, I don’t mind it too much; it just remains to be seen whether it’ll impact the ARIA Charts.
Maybe they should’ve chosen “smooth Entertainment” rather than “NOVA Entertainment”.
Probably. They’re already big on nostalgia for the 90s and early 00s. They’ve been recently going gaga about the return of Fifty Cent to Australia. They’re now a version of 2WS for middle aged mums.
I have to say that it has improved in the last few weeks and is better than it has been in a long time. I was really unsure about Kate Ritchie joining the show and I think Fitzy and Wippa were really unsure about her too, which was coming through as somewhat bitter and a real awkwardness for the first few weeks.
I don’t what happened behind the scenes to change it but I feel Kate has started to hit her stride. I don’t if they’ve been spending time together after the show which is helping them build a stronger working relationship but the banter is happening now. It might also have something to do with Sarah McGilvray being given a production role now which might have smoothed things out with her and with management behind the scenes.
Kate is still a bit annoying with all the things she’s not willing to join in and always too careful about sharing mich about her life but she’s getting better at that too.
I still think Nova’s biggest problem is their playlist. It’s too old and repetitive. I still do their Nova Rated survey which is emailed to me every week. Unbelievable thst they still ask hou to review songs on their playlist ftom 6-9 months ago. These songs should not be on high rotation. Then you see them testing “new” songs like Calm Down by Rema and Selina Gomez. They played for about two weeks about five months ago but yhe dropped. It has been on the Aussie singles chart for 27 weeks and gone 4 times platinum. They only took notice because it hit #3 in the UK a few weeks ago and #5 in the US last week (#3 this week). They’re just hopeless at adding new music to the playlist and ironically, anything that sounds different.
What also annoys me is that certain artists (and/or certain songs) only get played whenever they are promoted heavily on the station, and even then, their music only gets played once or twice then never again.
They could so easily be playing some new music by Ava Max, for example, but they continue to play “Sweet but Psycho” even though that song is nearly five years old, and a lot of Australian music fans have certainly gotten sick of it.
Also makes me wonder, does the music director at the station have something against certain artists (Maisie Peters, who is signed to Ed Sheeran’s label, for example)? Just because he or she doesn’t like them, or doesn’t see any potential in them, there’s simply no excuse not to play their music. Same goes if listeners don’t like certain artists.
I also remember two decades ago, the Hot30 Countdown on 2DAYFM had a segment where viewers could “rate the music” about halfway through the program. Whichever song won that battle would be played in its entirety after the segment. From what I can remember, A1’s “Caught in the Middle” got a very good run on it.
A perfect example is 10:35 by Tate McRae and Tiesto. It took them forever to add to the Nova playlist and only did so after it went top 5 in the UK. Now, months later it’s still on high rotation and being played every 4 hours. They didn’t play Green Green Grass by George Ezra until it blew up on Tik Tok a year later.
They’re not playing Whistle by Jax Jones and Calum Scott even though they have played songs by both these artists in thd past and it reached #14 in the UK. They’re also not playing Padam Padam by Kylie Minogue even though it hit #12 in the UK this week after blowing upon Tik Tok.
I recall that song got some rotation this time last year (it was also featured on So Fresh: The Hits of Winter 2022). It wasn’t until February this year that it started charting in Australia.
Another example I wanted to point out. They’re still playing “Where Are You Now” which is a collaboration between Scott and Lost Frequencies (who until late 2021 was only known for 2015’s “Are You With Me”).
This should get a run this week with Kylie having performed it at the recent Capital FM Summertime Ball in London.
Among other artists whose old music is still being played, despite having recently released new music: Zara Larsson (whose 2015 hit “Never Forget You” still gets high rotation despite it being nearly 8 years old), Ke$ha, Tom Grennan (whose third studio album drops this Friday) and OneRepublic.
If there was ever a segment, consider a song battle between Maisie Peters and Rosa Linn. Listeners would simply vote for Rosa Linn on the basis of her 2022 smash hit “Snap” being a worldwide success while at the same time thinking “who is Maisie Peters?”.
For what it’s worth, Linn has been a commercial success in Australia while Peters has not had one single song or album chart in the country, despite the promotion she got while supporting Ed Sheeran on his Mathematics tour.
You’re not wrong. These are their most played throwback songs this week. Stupid to be playing the mouldie oldies on high rotation. More throwbacks than fresh hits now. This is the list of their most played throwbacks at the moment:
Sigala & James Arthur - Lasting Lover
Ava Max - Sweet but Psycho
Loud Luxury & brando - Body
Taylor Swift - Shake It Off
112 - Dance With Me
Zara Larsson & MNEK - Never Forget You
Post Malone - Better Now
Harry Styles - Watermelon Sugar
Mark Ronson & Amy Winehouse - Valerie
RAYE’s Escapism is another song which is played on Nova 100 every day. It is the radio edit which omits references to drugs.
(I only heard of RAYE’s name when she appeared on The Graham Norton Show in January this year to perform another track, The Thrill is Gone. Both Escapism and The Thrill is Gone are from her current album, My 21st Century Blues)
All the while I’ve noticed they’ve also stopped playing “Snap” by Rosa Linn - indirectly because it dropped out of the ARIA Top 50 four months ago (was going to say this earlier but the week after that, George Ezra’s “Green Green Grass” debuted in it).
They also aren’t playing any of her newbies either… “Hallelujah” was released a month ago, on the same day Becky Hill dropped “Side Effects”, but it seems like Nova saw more potential in the latter song (now that’s a decision I agree with!).
I knew about her well before “Escapism” - she was featured in hits with Jonas Blue and Jax Jones in late-2016-early-2017.
Escapism is her biggest solo hit ARIA #3 but she has heaps of previous hits overseas and Australia in collabs with other artists. These have all been played by Nova:
Secrets - Raye with Regard ARIA #24
Bed - Joel Corry, Raye and David Guetta ARIA #20
By Your Side - Jonas Blue (featuring Raye) ARIA #33
You Don’t Know Me - Jax Jones (featuring Raye) ARIA #12
Plus a lot of others that charted in the UK and Europe but not Australia.
Define “throwbacks”, because this ain’t it chief.
Just goes to show how dry the Nova playlist has gotten if this is what constitutes as throwbacks in this day and age. On the bright side, at least it doesn’t include the perennial Nova favorite “It Wasn’t Me”.
Thank god for that.
KIIS 106.5 now play more new music than Nova these day, particularly during dayparts.
Anything that is not in the Top 50 chart is a throwback. Nova stopped playing those song but started again recently. That’s a throwback.
It’s not a throwback. It’s a recurrent.
I would not be surprised if they started playing “Shotgun” by George Ezra again in the near future, even though his song “Green Green Grass” is still charting.
Another I can think of is “I Wanna Know” by NOTD/Bea Miller. That song was so 2018
So we have to classify them into three categories now? Nova will have to now promote itself as Fresh Hits, Throwbacks and Recurrents. 
There are only 2 good songs in that list IMO:
Mark Ronson/ Amy Winehouse - Valerie
112 - Dance With Me
I’d rather listen to some of the DAB stations , especially the Noughties and 90s stations. At least they play better music !
They belong on Smooth or 2Day.
Curiously, Michael Wipfli from Fitzy and Wippa with Kate Ritchie is off this week, taking a week’s holiday before the other two also go on their scheduled break. This is after Kate Ritchie took a week off at Easter.
They get so many holidays throughout the year with survey breaks, it’s crazy that they’re taking additional weeks too now.
ETA: Fitzy revealed today that Wippa will be away for two weeks. Turns oit he went to the weddiing of of chef Guillaume Brahimi and heiress Tamie Ingham. Karl Stefanovic is also in attendance and wife Jasmine is a bridesmaid.