I was in the middle of a SXSW Sydney conference session hosted by Viv Kelly who co-presents MediaLand on ABC Radio National talking broadly about those who have moved to independent offerings after radio careers have ended when Viv mentioned that ARN and Life Uncut with Brittany Hockley and Laura Byrne had parted ways.
An ARN spokesperson said:
“After six successful years together, ARN and Life Uncut will part ways at the end of 2025, allowing us to focus on new iHeart Originals launching in 2026. More details on our upcoming podcast slate and The Pick Up will be shared at our Upfront on 29 October.”
This is a strange and complex decision.
Brittany and Laura host The Pick Up from 3-4pm weekdays on the KIIS Network. Up until this time last year the show also included Mitch Churi who was let go from ARN and has now started his own chat show supported by Acast.
In 2024 Brittany and Laura were awarded the ACRA as Best Podcast Hosts, (Brittany Hockley pictured at the awards – main) the podcast surpassed 100 million downloads in July and in the most recent Australian Podcast Ranker it ranked 7th (see above) with nearing 900K monthly downloads. Life Uncut started in 2019; how that doesn’t fit with anything under an umbrella of ARN or iHeart Originals is mystifying.
Then there’s the networked Pick Up show. It looks like we’ll have to wait till the Upfront in a couple of weeks. There is the equally strange then somewhat retracted announcement that Kent Smallzy Small is joining the KIIS Network, which ARN’s Chief Audience and Content Officer Lauren Joyce certainly didn’t categorical rule out post Survey 6.
Laura Byrne has just given birth to baby Poppy. This parting of ways may be stressful, but then they have an old friend in Mitch Churi who is already showing them ways to go solo, and then there’s the Triple M duo, on at the same time as the Pick Up funnily enough, Lu and Jarch, who are managing a radio show alongside their We Mean Well podcast that isn’t aligned with their network’s LiSTNR platform. There’s plenty of options for Laura and Brittany ahead.
Jen Seyderhelm is a writer, editor and podcaster for Radioinfo. Email: [email protected]