Aunty rewards potential
It seems ABC Radio Brisbane has had a rethink on its hiring policies. Also: Sandilands v Fordham.
Bill McDonald has reportedly signed a deal to be a fill-in presenter on 612 ABC Brisbane. Rebecca Levingston has just hosted an episode of ABC Radio National’s Life Matters program.
What else do they have in common, apart from being familiar voices to Brisbane audiences?
They are both consultants at Media Potential, a Brisbane company that, according to its website, provides “cutting edge training programs to assist those seeking professional communication skills, television presenting skills and help in building a media profile”.
Also working part-time for that company is former top-rating 612 ABC Breakfast host Spencer Howson.
Regular readers of Mister Brisbane may remember that Howson was going to be the host of Saturday Breakfast this year, but the ABC told him he would have to choose between that and his work with Media Potential, which he didn’t want to do.
My understanding is that neither McDonald nor Levingston has been required to give up their other job as a condition of being heard on the ABC.
Howson told me: “Isn’t it great that the ABC has seen the light and is now happy to have two of Media Potential’s consultants as presenters?
“And I mean that genuinely. They’ve obviously had a rethink and worked out how to mitigate any concerns.”
Footnote: McDonald is tipped to present 612 ABC Breakfast over the school holidays. Will he have a co-host, and who might that be?
Who’s on first?
You’ve heard it often enough that you probably believe that Kyle Sandilands was no.1 in the Sydney radio market for decades.
In fact, the Kyle and Jackie O Show was mostly only no.1 FM and it was beaten in the overall Breakfast ratings firstly by Alan Jones and more recently by Ben Fordham.
Yes, different bands and different audience demographics, but 2GB topped KIIS in terms of Breakfast ratings share at almost every survey — and often by quite a large margin.
Anyway, Fordham and Sandilands have had a fractured relationship over the years, and it seems to have come to a head in the past week, with Sandilands apparently threatening to slap Fordham.
You can find it all online (there’s a link here, although it may disappear), but here’s how it ended (for now), with an on-air spray from Fordham:
“Kyle has had a crack at little old me. You can slap me anytime, sweetheart. Let me say this to Kyle ‘the slapper’ Sandilands.
“I love it when you role-play as a tough guy, and you’ve explained recently that’s what you do when you’re on the air.
“But be honest Kyle, you didn’t threaten to slap me – you’re just having aggressive fantasies about the guy who dominated you in the ratings.”
Ouch.
Meanwhile, if you’re wondering about the numbers Sandilands needs to make a success of his planned online subscription service, Brisbane-based multimedia personality James Cridland has crunched them here.
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Nine or nein?
Is Nine preparing to face up to life without rugby league? So asks James Manning in Mumbrella in an opinion piece speculating about the future of free-to-air TV footy coverage.
Impossible, I hear you say. Well, for most of my life, tennis was on Seven and cricket on Nine. Not so nowadays.
Sport can certainly draw a lot of viewers, but a broadcaster that pays more for the rights than it can reasonably expect to recoup in advertising will find itself in in a lot of trouble.
P.S.
My recent post about the cancelled Beetlejuice tour may have been interpreted as me expressing little faith in the theatre industry. I actually see this as a road bump not a car crash, but I think people in the arts should not take anything, including government support, for granted.
©2026 Brett Debritz. If I’ve inadvertently used copyrighted material, failed to give credit where it’s due, written or said something you disagree with, or otherwise upset or unexpectedly delighted you, please leave a comment, email me or connect with me at @debritz on X and Mastodon, @brettdebritz on Facebook, Instagram, Threads and BlueSky, and @radiobert on YouTube. Links provided as a courtesy; I take no responsibility for their contents or give any warranty of their veracity. Image created with AI.
Disclaimer: Brett Debritz once produced programs on 4BC hosted by Bill McDonald and Spencer Howson.