SCA axes internal corporate comms and PR team
Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) has dismantled its internal corporate communications and PR team, understood to be the result of cost-cutting, Mumbrella can reveal.
Led by Kelly Stambanis, the radio network’s head of corporate communications and PR, the national in-house team was axed in recent weeks.
SCA’s PR has since been picked up by external comms agency, Sound Story.
SCA’s Chief Financial Officer Tim Young has resigned, in which he will depart from the role at the end of January 2025.
Grant broadcasting was sold to ARN several years ago & now ARN want to buy Southern Cross but they did not want to TV assets.
SCA has revealed an ambitious 2025 programming slate alongside dynamic advertising and technology initiatives
SCA is gearing up for a huge 2025 with investment in new talent and local shows, complementing an already strong stable of established programs, and a suite of new tech and advertising initiatives which will connect brands with the Audiences That Matter (25-54).
New and Refreshed Programming in 2025:
Delivering localism in breakfast, SCA will launch new and refreshed breakfast shows in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide markets where audiences have resoundingly voted in favour of local content. In addition, Triple M Drive will evolve in 2025 and Nights will have a new look on the Hit Network.
Mick Molloy is returning to his Melbourne home town with Mick in the Morning with Roo, Titus & Rosiejoined by Nick Riewoldt, Titus O’Reily and Rosie Walton on 105.1 Triple M. With Molloy back on home turf and Nick Riewoldt bringing his expertise as a respected AFL figure – stepping out in his first full time radio job – this new breakfast show will deliver local content, plenty of Melbourne flavour and homegrown personalities.
Sydney audiences can look forward to a brand-new show, Triple M Breakfast with Beau, Tarsh & Woodsy (Beau Ryan, Natarsha Belling and Aaron Woods). These local voices are no strangers to Sydney audiences, and will deliver a dynamic mix of mischief, cheekiness, lively sports banter and plenty of laughs.
New duo Xav Ellis and Katie Lamb will return to breakfast on 92.9 Triple M in 2025 as Triple M Breakfast with Xav & Katie. Kicking off in October 2024, former AFL player Xavier Ellis is joined by Katie Lamb, who won over listeners as part of Perth’s Triple M Rush Hour.
2025 will see an evolution of Triple M Drive, with The Rush Hour with JB & Billy (James Brayshaw and Billy Brownless) extending even further into Adelaide, Perth and regional stations across South Australia and Western Australia from 4pm – 6pm. The Marty Sheargold Show (Marty Sheargold) will be heard nationally from 3pm – 4pm, and continue the laughs throughout the afternoon in Sydney, Brisbane, Gold Coast and regional markets across New South Wales and Queensland.
On the Hit Network,2DayFM Breakfast is set to deliver a fresh sound to Sydneysiders with the talented and loveable Jimmy & Nath (Jimmy Smith and Nathan Roye) confirmed as hosts, joined by accomplished Sydney radio presenter Emma Chow.
Adelaide also got a head start with SA FMs new Breakfast show, Bernie & Emma G (Bernie Vince and Emma Georgiadis), which kicked off in November. In 2025, they will return to bring a fresh new level of energy and cheekiness to Adelaide Breakfast.
While in the evenings from 13 January, things will heat up Monday to Thursday (7pm – 10pm) and Saturdays (3pm – 5pm) with the new The Hot Hits with Nic & Loren (Nic Kelly and Loren Barry), giving listeners access to their new favourite music, the best and biggest hits, special guests and the latest music news. On Fridays (7pm – 10pm) and Saturdays (5pm – 8pm), The Lucy & Nikki Show (Lucy Jackson and Nikki Westcott) will also continue with their unique take on love and life, and of course plenty of laughs.
Hit and Triple M’s returning shows in 2025:
SCA’s new and refreshed shows and talent complement a stable of strong and respected established programs throughout the network in Breakfast and Drive:
SCA has been a dominant player in the Melbourne market and 2024 was no exception with perennially popular Fifi, Fev & Nick (Fifi Box, Brendan Fevola and Nick Cody) growing audience share across the year. The team will return to The Fox in 2025, bringing local stories and banter to the Breakfast slot, and offering listeners access to Melbourne’s biggest party.
The SCA duopoly dominates Brisbane, with B105 and Triple M the top two stations in market. Brisbane’s #1 Breakfast show, B105’s Stav, Abby & Matt (Stav Davidson, Abby Coleman and Matt Acton), after securing the top spot in 7 out of 8 surveys in 2024 and committing to the breakfast audience with long term contacts.
Triple M Breakfast with Marto, Margaux & Dan (Greg ‘Marto’ Martin, Margaux Parker and Dan Anstey) returns to entertain Brisbane listeners in 2024.
Adelaide’s #1 FM Breakfast show, Triple M Breakfast with Roo, Ditts & Loz (Mark Ricciuto, Chris Dittmar and Laura O’Callaghan) will return after a string of survey wins across the board.
Nationally, Hit Network listeners will be treated to the hilarious and heartwarming Carrie & Tommy (Carrrie Bickmore and Tommy Little) for the Drive home from 3pm to 6pm.
SCA’s Chief Content Officer, Dave Cameron, said: “It’s fair to say, we’re pretty pumped and feeling hugely optimistic about our 2025 metro lineups, a combination of existing powerhouse local shows and talent, alongside some fresh strong new voices making their mark on each city.
“We have a firm conviction that local breakfast shows with local personalities creating locally focussed content in each of our metro markets will deliver the start to the day that listeners have ultimately demanded.
“Alongside our powerhouse established talent including Fifi Box, Carrie Bickmore, Tommy Little, Mick Molloy, Abby Coleman, Brendan ‘Fev’ Fevola, Marty Sheargold and others, we are also relentless and hungry on leading the charge of bringing new exciting voices into the industry. Beau Ryan, Bernie Vince, Emma G, Katie Lamb, Liesel Jones, Jimmy and Nath, Nick Riewoldt and many others will step up to headline shows and continue to evolve this incredibly buoyant industry.
Highly entertaining, brand safe, family friendly shows will continue to drive audiences and client integration even higher in 2025.”
2025 Tech & Innovation
SCA is also the home of LiSTNR – Australia’s leading audio hub with people’s favourite podcasts, music and radio streaming. In 2025 LiSTNR will continue to invest in premium original Australian made podcasts across Society and Culture, Health and Wellbeing, Comedy, Crime, News, Factual – investigative docu-series, and music docu-series, and Sport. Together with its international partner titles from Wondery and Sirius XM, and its domestic partner DM podcasts, deliver some of Australia’s most popular podcasts including Hamish & Andy, The Briefing, It’s A Lot with Abbie Chatfield, Happy Hour with Lucy & Nikki, The Howie Games, Secrets We Keep, Crime Junkie, Smartless, KICPOD, Morbid and The Mel Robbins Podcast as well as new signing The Imperfects who join LiSTNR in February.
LiSTNR will continue to develop new podcast formats and partnerships to match the changing needs of both audiences and advertisers alike.
The tech platform also offers advertisers the LiSTNR AdTech Hub, an exclusive new advertising technology which offers market-leading commercial opportunities in digital audio. The suite of ad products leverages LiSTNR’s owned and operated model with its engaged known user base of 2.1 million listeners. It will create more effective advertising via the most personalised experiences and frictionless transactions which drive results.
In 2025, SCA will also have new audio tools for driving planning and effectiveness, including Audology, a web-based regional and metro audience tool. The simple-to-use tool takes fewer than five minutes for an audience run, and is a third-party Gold-standard industry tool which has all surveyed markets, including GfK data.
The SCA Boomtown Indexer is a media-first insights tool, used to understand audience sentiment and purchase intentions. The web-based consumer insights tool provides buyergraphic and category-specific indices of SCA’s audience versus the general population. It can be filtered to state, SCA Network and demographic.
Seb Rennie, SCA’s Chief Commercial Officer, said: “2025 is gearing up to be another exciting year in audio with Aussies spending more and more time with their favourite content be it radio, streaming or podcasts. SCA’s total audio ecosystem is the largest and most advanced in Australia and presents awesome opportunities for brands to continue to connect with highly engaged audiences in new and innovative ways.”
SCA’s Total Audio ecosystem in 2025 is simple and ubiquitous and will reach the Audiences That Matter. SCA audiences across the Hit Network, Triple M and LiSTNR will be able to access their favourite shows, the country’s most-popular personalities, exciting emerging talent, and a world-class podcasts and streaming library; while advertisers will benefit from insights which make their dollars work harder as the audio evolution continues.
SCA has bolstered its commercial team with key strategic appointments in Melbourne, with Bec Ellem appointed as head of direct sales and Christine Lester taking on the role of head of independent agencies.
To meet the growing demand and needs of clients and agencies, SCA Melbourne is refining its commercial structure into three distinct teams – Agency, Indie Agency and Direct. Ellem will lead the newly established Direct Sales team, driving the development and execution of targeted direct sales strategies to further support Melbourne’s expanding market. In addition, Christine Lester will step into the role of head of independent agency, leading a dedicated team to drive growth for SCA in the Indie market.
She replaces Hamish Rose, who is leaving after 13 years, including the last five as Brisbane’s head of sales.
Rose, who played a key role in leading the Boomtown Radio Specialist team and securing representation for ACE Radio Network, will now transition to McDonald’s as a future licensee.
Significant redundancies for SCA
Some regional breakfast shows, as well as 2DayFM, Hit & Triple M talent, are being impacted.
Source: Radioinfo
More discussion on the Triple M side can be found here:
They’re saying 2DayFM Breakfast. I am assuming it’s not on-air, but off-air impacted there?
According to insta Dange hasnt been given the axe
Partly blaming failed takeover attempt
In the email, Kelly referred to “the challenging economic conditions and structural challenges being experienced by the Australian media industry” in the email, with a pointed remark regarding “recent corporate activity where SCA was the target of other Australian media operators.”
This refers to the failed takeover attempt by ARN, which saw SCA’s FY24 profits dive by 49.2% due to the “significant costs” incurred by all parties, as ARN’s CEO and managing director Ciaran Davis put it to Mumbrella in August, after its profits were also impacted by the abandoned merger attempts.
Pretty much business as usual at SCA. They’ve finally moved on their tv assets, years later than they should’ve done so, so audio is the place to continue their death by a thousand cuts.
What’s the odds that they’ll look to just sell off the regional radio assets and concentrate on the metro networks. I know in most areas they are the only commercial radio game in town, but would the revenue and profits, even if they cut everything to the bone, be worth it?
I would think the larger regional markets would still be quite profitable, but who knows.
I almost feel like they might be fattening the whole company up for a sale.
Rosey was looking for the real thing after participating in the McDonaldsisation of SCA.
Likely indeed. The company is at a point where ongoing incompetence of the board has resulted in laughable strategic decisions that they can no longer not point fingers elsewhere.
The patience of the instos has long evaporated.
The half year results have been posted.
SCA appoints new chief financial officer ahead of half-year results
Southern Cross Austereo has appointed Toby Potter as its new chief financial officer.
Potter has been acting CFO since December, following the resignation of Tin Young, who has held the role since 2022.
He has worked at SCA for over a decade across various positions, including head of commercial finance, and head of business transformation.
The appointment was announced to the market prior to SCA’s half-year results presentation on Thursday morning.
This follows the recent appointment of Sarah Tinsley as chief legal officer and company secretary.
Hmmm… let’s ponder on how SCA’s revenue could’ve possibly “transformed”?
A better offering? Better ratings? Stronger performing talent? Or due to the recent redundancies?
It’s the right move for them to concentrate on audio and digital.
I just wish they could make Triple M actually listenable. Because it just isn’t a station that has consistency and broad appeal. Triple M should be killing it in a market like Brisbane, where the other 3x major FM’s are identical CHR stations. But the playlist is simply boring, narrow and repetitive, and the station sounds blokey and bogan. There is a huge section of the 35+ audience that just don’t find the station appealing in the slightest.