When radioinfo caught up with Craig Bruce, now confirmed as Head of Content for the newly formed Austereo/Southern Cross omnipotency, he was on his way to head office on the Gold Coast, a trip that will, for him, likely become as regular as All Bran. And while that in itself represents cultural change, Bruce can see no problems in merging the two companies, although he’s still personally struggling with some of the terminology. When asked about the new group he muffs his reply, “We, they umm, we. I’m still getting used to ‘we’, ‘they’, ‘them’ ‘us’,” he says.

But that small stumble doesn’t dampen his enthusiasm for the ‘grand vision’. “So far its been nothing but positive,” says Bruce. “In terms of cultural issues, there’s been none so far. Southern Cross is a radio company that understands radio and they respect both the content and sales sides of the business.”

While Bruce himself admits that he’s hardly likely to say anything negative, he’s keen to prove that there’s real substance to his upbeat mood as he talks about concrete benefits. Chief among them is a giant pool of fresh talent.

“Over the years Southern Cross has developed so many on-air and off-air performers and prepared them for capital city markets that we (Austereo) operate in. And now we get a chance to get to that talent, both on air and off air, like content directors, producers of breakfast shows and new talent coming through – we get to work with them from the start. There’s a terrific upside in that respect.

“Also we’ll have an opportunity to develop Austereo best practices into those regional markets. I can only see upside around that. I think that’s going to be terrific for the group.

“On top of that, from my perspective, there are some really good exciting shows out in those regional markets that we’re looking forward to helping as best we can in terms of developing them and having their skills ready go for larger markets,” says Bruce.

With the new mega-network’s gravitational pull approaching that of Jupiter, the question is whether smaller networks will struggle to attract and retain talent.

But for now ‘Southereo’ has yet to settle on a name to call itself.

Says Bruce, “We’re still working through how the new structure will look because there’s lots of moving parts from a radio perspective. But there’s certainly some terrific opportunities for us.”