Hello, I'm James Cridland, the radio futurologist,
and this is Radioland, my radio newsletter for
August 3rd, 2025. Time to kiss goodbye in Brisbane.
The UK's Rajar radio figures came out this week.
Matt Deegan has highlighted the serious warning
lights flashing, he says, about young listeners.
In 20 years, the time spent listening to the
radio for those aged 10 to 18 has fallen by almost
50%. Meanwhile, Adam Bowie also crunches the
numbers, pointing out that Boom Radio, targeted
at those aged 60 or more, has new record figures.
Audiences up 14 .5%, and hours up an astonishing
49%. Success with the old, concern with the young,
and it's all looking quite hard to attract younger
audiences to listen more. Now hold that thought
for a second. On Gold 101 .7 in Sydney, the breakfast
duo Jonesy and Amanda announce that they're moving
to Afternoon Drive, and it doesn't take a genius
to guess. that this probably means Christian
O 'Connell's breakfast show on Gold 104 .3 in
Melbourne will be simulcast into Sydney. O 'Connell
is a class act. I worked with him in London,
and Gold 101 .7 already takes an hour of his
show, so listeners will be at least partially
familiar with what he does. Gold is owned by
ARN, which also owns Kiss, which has simulcast
Kyle and Jackie O's smutty, advertiser -unfriendly
Sydney breakfast show into Melbourne. And while
that has failed because of the dire polarising
content of Kyle's show, the technology for networking
is now tried and tested, and you can see ARN
using it again to bring Christian into a new
market. But you'll recall that there's a problem
with young audiences in the UK, and you would
assume that the same is true in Australia, although
we don't see time spent listening in the same
way here. But what about Brisbane? Well, ARN
owns two radio stations here, Kiss 97 .3 and
River 94 .9. River's a full service station licensed
for Ipswich, a city that overlaps Brisbane's
transmission area. And it doesn't operate its
gold brand in Brisbane. It used to with 4KQ,
but that often number one station was a casualty
when ARN bought Grant Broadcasters. Ownership
rules limit you here to only two radio stations.
On FM then, Brisbane has Nova, fresh hits and
throwbacks, with a 10 .3 % share. B105, Brisbane's
number one hit music station, with a 12 .2 %
share. Kiss, Brisbane's number one hit music
station, again, 9 .3 % share. And the ABC's Triple
J, the best new music from around Australia and
the world, 4 .5 % share. Younger audiences are
deserting radio in terms of time spent listening,
yet Brisbane has four FM's chasing them. So similar
sounding, two have the same catchphrase on air.
The only real oldies station in Brisbane is owned
by Nine Radio, but operated by Ace Radio. It's
called 4BH, Brisbane's home of great classic
hits, and it operates on an AM frequency so bad
that 4BC switched away from it. It's mostly voice
-tracked from Melbourne, but with a breakfast
show from Brisbane, and it's currently the number
four station by share. At 10 .1%, that's higher
than Kiss. Triple M is oldies. It's currently
number one in this market at 13 .3%, but oldies,
yes, kind of, but it's all rock and sport and
tradies and blokes. There's plenty of space for
competition. Older audiences aren't deserting
radio. They love 4BH so much that they're willing
to tolerate a mostly voice track station on a
bad AM frequency. ARN already owns a similar
format and the advertisers, but no outlet in
Brisbane for them. Its KISS station isn't winning,
and it's unlikely to, assuming Kyle and Jackie
O comes here too. By all accounts, Kyle Sandilands
is a notoriously difficult person to manage,
and is someone who doesn't listen to direction.
He's toxic to advertisers, does a show that unashamedly
doesn't welcome in new listeners and seems not
to care about his show being a success. Christian
is the polar opposite, someone who wants to succeed,
who listens to direction, who works well with
advertisers and is eager for more success in
the future. And Kyle's co -host Jackie O this
week announced her retirement from radio in 2034
at the end of her current deal. It's hard to
argue that she cares much either. Well, it's
obvious, surely. Surely Gold 97 .3 in Brisbane
is the obvious choice for a format flip. The
opportunities for a more female -friendly oldies
station here is clearly obvious. And I'm not
the only one to think that. I noticed that Mr
Brisbane has also suggested this in the past.
Could you take it one further with Network's
Christian O 'Connell at breakfast? Then Morning's
with Brisbane's Robin Bailey, who's currently
one of Kiss's breakfast team, perfect for the
audience. She's been on air here for over 20
years. She's already contracted with the broadcaster
anyway, followed by Network Drive. And calling
it Gold 97 .3 4KQ, for the first year at least,
would be even more astute, remembering that we're
predominantly a diary -based market here. There
are a lot of people in Brisbane who'd be delighted
that 4KQ was back, and it would immeasurably
help with marketing. ARN still owns that brand,
you'd assume, so it's still valuable. And if
the ABC was clever, surely they'd simulcast ABC
Radio Brisbane onto FM as soon as they can, as
a defensive move. Now last week I was on BBC
Radio 4's feedback programme produced by Whistledown
trying to explain why the BBC has turned off
BBC Sounds and also how you can listen. You'll
find the audio if you check out my website at
james .cridland .net. I also wrote a blog post
about how to listen to BBC Radio overseas which
I will keep updated and I hope you find it a
useful enough guide to reshare. You'll find a
link to that in the show notes as well. Here's
a fun thing. Echo Radio is a piece of installable
software that time delays a radio stream for
you so you can listen to a radio station in your
own local time, assuming, of course, that the
radio station you want to listen to is on the
right side of the world and not on the left side
of the world, where, of course, now hasn't happened
yet. And Triple J ran a hugely successful Hottest
100 of Australian songs a few weekends ago. It
was one time when I listened to the radio in
the evening, curious as to who was number one.
In excesses never tear you apart, so it turned
out. It was simulcast across Triple J, Double
J and Triple J Unearthed. Now personally, I'd
have simulcast it across all three stations,
but branded it Double J rather than Triple J.
But it was a surprisingly captivating piece of
radio. Game Changers Radio the podcast has some
numbers in it of how popular it was which is
worth a listen and a good debate as to whether
or not it was a good idea you can find the full
chart by searching for it in your music app of
choice And thank you to Dave Charles of Media
Results International for your kind support of
this newsletter and my podcast and my work in
general. They've got an experienced team over
there. The company focuses on format, content
development, sales revenue generation and, Canadian,
regulatory issues. Of course. And it's got experience
in Canada, Australia, Malaysia, South Africa
and other countries as well. Thank you, Dave.
Much appreciated. And the website, in case you're
wondering, is mediarezults .ca. Next, I'm speaking
at Podcast Movement in Dallas in Texas, August
the 18th to the 21st. And thank you to some excellent
supporters, including Clyde Broadcast. Broadcast
Radio, Meliora, and Radio King for your kind
support. If you would like to support my work
in any way, you can buy me a coffee, become a
member to give regularly, or just give a one
-off coffee or five. You can do that at buymeacoffee
.com slash jamescridland. I'm on Blue Sky as
james .crid .land or on Mastodon as james at
bne .social. And my website has more details
about who I am, what I do, and whether I can
help you further. You'll find that at james.
James .Cridland .net. And until next time, keep
listening.