Did they jump or were they pushed?

Opinion from Peter Saxon

Monday October 9, 2017 will go down in the annals of Australian radio as perhaps the biggest upheaval of all time in a single day.

Ever since Kyle & Jackie O defected from 2Day FM to Mix 106.5  – which was promptly rebranded to KIIS FM – the competition for the ears of ‘all ppl > 40’ has intensified exponentially. Not only are there now three networks vying for the same demographic where there used to be two, streaming services such as Spotify, Apple Music and iHeart have since established themselves in the market to further dilute audience share.

With real talent at a premium, the stakes are high, the competition is tough, sometimes bitter and often personal.

What made yesterday’s events all that more incredible was that few really saw it coming.

The first clue came last Tuesday when Melbourne Content Director Sam Thompson left suddenly with no word on where exactly she was going other than a parting gesture from National Content Director, Duncan Campbell saying, “Sam has decided to have a well-earned break and focus on a career change after spending her whole working life in radio. We wish her nothing but the best for the next stage of her career.” 

Did she jump or was she pushed?

I don’t know and I don’t wish to speculate but in a light-hearted article on radioinfo designed to decipher the language of career moves entitled: “Radio people are never sacked they just pursue personal interests, I wrote: “Generally, those who choose to jump do so because they have a demonstrably better position lined up. And they’ll go out of their way to make it known exactly where they’re going and what they’ll be doing.”

That’s more the case with Hughesy and Kate for whom, just minutes before the rumours of them leaving KIIS were confirmed by ARN, SCA made it known that they had snared the duo to do Drive on the HIT Network.

While outlining the raft of changes at KIIS, this time the quote from Duncan Campbell about Hughesy and Kate had a very different tone to the effusive praise for Sam Thompson’s hard work. He simply said, “As a result of these changes, Dave ‘Hughesy’ Hughes and Kate Langbroek will not return to the network in 2018.”  While that might suggest that they were pushed or simply shuffled out of the deck, you don’t “push” a national drive show with a consistent 9.0+ share of the five city audience lightly.

It sounds credible for Hughesy and Kate to have been lured to SCA for the opportunity to reach an even wider audience on a 43 station network. Plus, having been at Nova and ARN, there’s the chance they’ll hit the trifecta and succeed on all three FM networks. Not to mention the offer of more money from a highly motivated SCA that needs a proven replacement for Hamish and Andy as well as some payback for ARN pinching Kyle & Jackie O four years ago.

It was a different scenario for the KIIS101.1 Breakfast show. “In addition,” said Campbell, Matt Tilley and Meshel Laurie will also not be returning to KIIS 101.1, having informed ARN that they had decided not to renew their contracts with the network.”

The contrast in words suggests that Hughesy and Kate were leaving because there was no room left for them in the new line-up but Matt & Meshel were leaving of their own accord. Except that, because they’re not an established pairing like Hughesy & Kate, Hamish & Andy or Jonesy & Amanda it seems unlikely they would both want to quit at the same time.

The reality is that M&M’s ratings have been poor and KIIS in Melbourne is drifting further and further down the ratings ladder. In Survey 6, released last week, the station was 7th overall with the Breakfast Show languishing in 8th.

Clearly Duncan Campbell wasn’t going to stick around with another Mix level station waiting for another Kyle and Jackie O to fall in his lap. This time, in a move that was rumoured back in August, he went all the way to New Zealand to nab ZM’s Drive duo ‘Jase & PJ’ aka Jason ‘Jase’ Hawkins and Polly ‘PJ’ Harding who, we’re told, “will be bringing their highly successful ‘Always Awkward’ brand of content,” to KIIS101.1 Breakfast.

To replace Hughesy & Kate, in Drive, Campbell dived deep into the SCA talent pool once again and poached the Perth 92.9 Breakfast show’s Will & Woody aka Will McMahon and Woody Whitelaw.

It’s difficult to tell who won and lost the most yesterday, SCA or ARN.

For SCA who is about to lose arguably the greatest talent they’ve ever had – up there with Doug Mulray and Andrew Denton – Hughesy and Kate is a must have. Carrie Bickmore and Tommy Little was already a good choice and strengthening and lengthening the time slot with H&K solidifies the offering.

For ARN, it’s a different proposition to when K&J jumped in in 2014. That was a big money risk but an odds on favourite to succeed, which it did in spectacular fashion. This time the new KIIS Breakfast show with Jase & PJ will be unknown to Melbourne audiences and are unlikely to drag their ZM listeners from New Zealand across the ditch to KIIS in the way K&J did across Sydney Harbour.

In Drive too, Will & Woody will have to earn recognition in cities like Brisbane and Sydney before they get traction. In what ARN calls “the first phase of its transformative 2018 strategy,” clearly the network’s thinking is to go younger and for that it helps to have younger talent than that which you are replacing.

Radio’s a risky business and three networks chasing the same demo makes it riskier still. All three networks may be able to survive if they remain bunched close enough together that advertisers can’t afford to drop any one off their schedules. But for the one that falls a few ratings points behind things could look pretty bleak.

Game on!

 

Peter Saxon