I’ve had quite a lot of feedback in recent days over my articles and other reporting about the situation in Brisbane radio, including the departures of Robin Bailey, Kip Wightman and Corey Oates at KIIS and of Peter Fegan and Bill McDonald at 4BC.
A lot of people have come up with theories about what might happen next — including one theory that one station’s loss could be other’s gain.
In terms of KIIS 973, I’ve been told by (I hope) reliable sources that Kent “Smallzy” Small will be behind the microphone come January — but, and this is intriguing, only as a temporary measure until Kyle Sandilands and Jackie ‘O’ Henderson get their act together.
The Kyle and Jackie O Show has been running for 20 years, most of them on KIIS. And one would imagine that if these very highly paid individuals are going to “get their act together” they would have done it by now.
So, if the Kyle and Jackie O Show is not ready for a Brisbane audience, what makes the bosses at KIIS owner ARN think that it will be ready in another year? The only thing that comes to mind is that whatever punishment the media watchdog, ACMA, will hand out over the duo’s latest breaches of broadcasting regulations will have played out by then.
Is it fair to Kent Small, or indeed to the Brisbane audience (which is more important), to put KIIS 979 Breakfast in a holding program until the preferred option is fit for purpose?
ARN has its upfront presentation to advertisers this week, and I guess anything can happen. Maybe what happens there will render this particular speculation irrelevant.
However, if it plays out the way that I (and others who have better contacts than me) understand that it will play out, then it’s an indictment on years of bad decision-making at ARN, and what I and others consider to be the worst deal in radio.
Even if the Kyle and Jackie O Show is the best radio program in Australia, they’re not worth the money that is being paid to them by a company that can’t really afford to pay that much money. So, there’s a failure of management there, for sure.
Now, to Nine Radio’s 4BC. A lot of names have been bandied about as to who will take over the reins of the Breakfast and Morning shows there. You could look at the efforts of the various guest presenters keeping the studio seat warm during Breakfast over the next couple of weeks as auditions for that job.
But somebody presented to me an interesting scenario: What if Robin, Kip and Corey from KIIS, who rated a 10.0 audience share in the most recent survey, moved to 4BC? Even if only half of their audience followed, they would still outrate Peter Fegan’s 3.6pc share. So, there’s an instant result.
One big problem is that their kind of show doesn’t fit the station’s current format. And Nine Radio seems to be more interested in sticking rigidly to a format that has never really succeeded in this market than trying something different.
4BC has been down this track before. It hired Laurel Edwards, Gary Clare and Mark Hine, and they did very well for a while — until Sydney-based management started fiddling with a formula that had worked well for that trio at 4KQ over many years.
I’m also told the knives were out very early on in their tenure with some unhelpful commentary from vested interests finding its way back to HQ.
Enter Peter Fegan, who didn’t do well but also didn’t get much of a go to show what he can do. Nor, it would seem, did he get any useful advice from Sydney about how to run a radio program for Brisbane audiences.
So, whatever decision Nine Entertainment — if it decides not to sell its radio stations —makes, it has to back that choice for more than a few months.
The KIIS team are known quantities — in Bailey’s case, dating back to the hey-day of B105’s Morning Crew and Wightman’s, the launch of Nova, which was an instant success in the Brisbane market.
At least some of the people who were listening to them when they were newbies are now at an age where switching to 4BC might seem like a viable option. (Music they don’t know or don’t like having driven them away from the FM stations.)
Of course, maybe the answer is the exact opposite of what I’ve just said.
Perhaps the fact that, with one or two exceptions, Brisbane radio pretty much features the same voices who were on air in the early Naughties is the problem.
Is it time to promote some entirely new (but not necessarily young) talent?
Commercial radio is an industry where the returns are diminishing, and competition is increasingly intense.
There are some talented people waiting in the wings who deserve a go.
Sure, you can take the one-size-fits-all approach of networking (which ARN really wants to do for financial reasons), or you can build something that truly is live and local.
Bespoke radio for Brisbane sounds good to me!
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P.S.
I’ve had some great feedback regarding community radio and will be writing about that again soon.
©2025 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: ARN/Gemini