When speculating on what 2024 would look like in Australian radio land I hedged that there would be more chat, less music, in part if the Fair Pay for Radio Play amendment bill was passed (it wasn’t) and also because ARN was now going to pay $20 million per annum to their KIIS Sydney and Melbourne breakfast team Kyle and Jackie O. They’re not there to play songs.

Attention in recent months around Australian music has turned away from radio and towards multinational entertainment and promotion organisations like Live Nation after a Four Corners investigation.

There is still a lot of talk about, and on, Kyle and Jackie’s KIIS breakfast programs, with radio surveys also strongly showing that people are listening to music too, smooth fm in particular, who play the most of the top metro stations.

I’ve also seen how invested commercial and community radio are in Australian music, old and new, none more so than in those in the main picture taken at the 2024 Australian Commercial Radio Awards, featuring left to right Triple M’s Matty O’Gorman, Nova’s Maddy Rowe, K Rock’s Chris Holland and ARN iHeart’s Brett ‘Nozz’ Nossiter. I’ll come back to them.

The issue remains how to keep radio as a relevant tool to both discover new music and support those who created it.

It used to be the first place people would go. Now, if the charts are anything to go by, TikTok is working wonders for old and new music. Spotify‘s new AI DJ mixes what you like and know with suggestions based on your interests and television and film are still great for putting a song into a context you’ll remember it in.

How we receive new music in the radio industry has changed too with most, not all, delivered by streaming.

This does indeed have a positive impact on the environment, but also means that a DJ no longer turns over a single and finds that the B side is even better than the lead single, like Kung Fu Fighting. Or when Adelaide’s SAFM received a copy of US band Sonia Dada’s You Don’t Treat Me No Good in 1992. They played the heck out of it and listener response saw it then get picked up across the Austereo network, then Australia wide. It went to No 1 on the ARIA Charts, after sitting at #2 for six weeks behind Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You. Nowhere else (except New Zealand) have really heard of Sonia Dada. Their triple platinum status here is down to a couple of South Australian radio people.

Each week Radioinfo publishes the AirCheck charts of what songs are getting the most radio airplay across commercial stations and triple j, FBi and Fresh 92.7 (also great sources of new music). We also share additional details like who picked up certain songs first with CADA and Chris Holland’s K Rock in Geelong Victoria, often mentioned.

In the main image are some of the biggest commercial radio champions of local music in Australia. An additional mention to the Hit Network‘s Nic Kelly, David Konsky working across the Hit and Triple M networks who picked up two ACRAs this year, and to Nine Radio‘s Ray Hadley who has been awarded for his many years in support of Australian country music.

The four pictured were up for this ACRA award:

THE GUDINSKI – AUSTRALIAN MUSIC CHAMPION

Brett ‘Nozz’ Nossiter, iHeartAustralia, Sydney, NSW, ARN

Great Ocean Odes; Chris Holland, Krock 95.5, Geelong, VIC, Grant Broadcasters

The Maddy Rowe Aus Music Show; Maddy Rowe, Jodie Williams, David Lennon, Brisbane, QLD, NOVA Entertainment,

Triple M Homegrown with Matty O; Matthew O’Gorman; Kalun Townsend; Andrew Very; Shaun Gough; Julia Di Gregorio, Triple M Melbourne, VIC, SCA

Triple M Homegrown won for a second year. Matty O came backstage after receiving his ACRA looking almost crestfallen. There he confessed that he felt bad winning again with his friends doing the same amazing job. Oh, and by the way, they’re all in a group chat together.