Following the departure of Dave Smith from ARN’s Melbourne operation Gold104, Group PD Jeremy Millar is confident the Gold team will continue its success.

Millar told radioinfo: “Dave Smith would agree that Gold’s success is a team effort. We have every confidence its success will continue.

“GOLD is not weakened by Smith’s resignation. A great team remains and listeners and advertisers will not be affected.”

Smith’s position will be filled by Mark Johnson. For the past six years Johnson had been GOLD104’s Music Director and one of the team behind the station’s outstanding ratings. He has over 21 years experience in radio, both on-air and behind the scenes.

Millar disagrees with comments by a former programmer in radioinfo’s earlier story on the moves, saying ARN’s other stations have been “extremely successful.”

“Mix 106.5 attracts almost 800,000 listeners per week… we have had massive gains in Adelaide and a stellar track record for 97.3 amongst others,” says Millar.

Rejecting the chance to throw stones at the opposition, Millar instead congratulated Dave Smith on his move saying: “Radio is one of those industries which traditionally has high turnover. ARN has an unusually high staff retention track record. After 10 years with ARN we wish Dave all the best.”

In an amusing aside to the story, Austereo insiders say there was a flurry of activity at Fox as Austereo tried to get its announcement about Brian Ford and Dave Smith together before Smith made the traditional ARN public departure announcement to his staff, preempting the planned announcement at the Austereo camp.