The Scottish radio guru who now calls Australia home

It was just over seven years ago that Paul Jackson left his home in the UK to join what was then the dmg radio network – now Nova Entertainment – in Australia.

 

“It was a big move and I wasn’t sure I’d be welcome for that long,” says Jackson. “But it has gone well.”

Indeed it has.

At the time, Nova was going just alright but the company’s second network, Vega, launched in 2005, was a basket case. It hovered around a 2.0 share in both Sydney and Melbourne despite a talent list that included Angela CatternsDenise ScottShaun MicallefBeverley O’ConnorWendy HarmerFrancis LeachWilbur WildeTony SquiresRebecca Wilson and Mike Perso.

In 2012, after a secret planning phase to rival D-Day, smoothfm was launched to an unsuspecting and mainly sceptical media. The rest, as they say, is history. 

Today smoothfm is #3 in Melbourne on a 10.1 share and #4 in Sydney on 9.2. They can’t beat advertisers away with a stick.

And Nova is the # 1 single branded metro network in the nation. 

Did Jackson expect to stay in Australia this long? “I didn’t really think about it like that,” he tells radioinfo. 

“The kids love it here and the kids are effectively Australian. I’m a citizen as well. Here to  stay.”

Read Peter Saxon’s profile of Paul Jackson and his dad Richard Park here.

Read radioinfo’s news of Jackson’s appointment to dmg in 2010 here.

 

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