Giddy Up: The most syndicated radio show in Australia is expanding

Craig Hutchison was a disappointed under-bidder in the recent sale of Nine Radio, but it hasn’t slowed his expansion of the Sports Entertainment Network he leads.

The core pillar in the SEN business remains radio, which sits alongside the other contributors including TV production, publishing, events, talent management and sports team ownership.

While a deal to acquire Nine Radio would have supersized the audio division, Hutchison this week oversaw further growth of SEN’s racing industry station network with its daily Giddy Up program now live on Racing.com on 7plus for four hours, five days a week.

The show is hosted by Gareth Hall and is — according to Mumbrella’s estimations — Australia’s most syndicated radio show.

During an interview with Mumbrella after wrapping a midweek episode, Hall reckons Giddy Up can also fairly be called the biggest racing show in the world.

In addition to being a key program across the 20 SENTrack stations around Australia, Giddy Up can be heard on recent SEN acquisition RSN via 20 frequencies RSN broadcasts across Victoria. It can also be heard on the SENTurf network of 30+ frequencies across Western Australia.

Giddy Up can also be streamed or heard on demand via the SEN app. The podcast made the top 100 podcasts as measured by the Podcast Ranker during the 2025 Spring Carnival, and was #107 in January this year.

As ARN has found out with The Kyle and Jackie O Show, networking radio shows can be a challenge. SEN too knows the perils of networking, and it has a myriad of live and local breakfast shows across its different brands. However, specialist programming like Giddy Up going to air later in the day is working for them across many markets.

Radio shows about to explode on TV

Gareth Hall

“A radio show on television,” is how Hall described his product this week. In addition to being available on Racing.com on 7plus, punters can also tune in via digital FTA channels 68/78, Foxtel’s channel 529 or via the sports streaming platform Kayo.

Just last week Seven’s head of sport Chris Jones revealed exclusively to Mumbrella plans the broadcaster has for combining audio and video offerings following the merger of Seven and SCA.

He indicated the first experiment could see video of Seven’s AFL games available on 7plus matched with Triple M’s audio coverage.

When asked about potential cross promotions with new colleagues at SCA, Jones labelled it “the most exciting thing that could possibly have happened to the Seven Sport team as well as our business as a whole”.

Calling country races

Hall got his start early in sports media. “I was a kid growing up in country Victoria in Mildura and I enjoyed calling the races when I was a teenager,” he said.

He later attended RMIT University in Melbourne with a plan to get into journalism.

“After work experience at WIN TV Mildura I got a full-time job and I was able to work at Nine and different places.”

Six years at Sky Racing in Sydney followed and then time with TAB Radio in Perth.

“I love radio … it’s clearly my favourite out of all of the mediums I have worked in,” said Hall.

Although Giddy Up started four years ago, Hall still calls it “relatively new” and notes “it is still growing.”

He added: “It’s a little bit different to the normal racing shows. We don’t really touch much on the politics in the sport. The show is like mates having lunch or being at the pub talking about racing.”

Those mates talking include the royalty of the racing industry.

Segments include Monday Means Test with trainer Wayne Hawkes and owner John O’Neill, plus The Hunter’s Edge with Mark Hunter.

O’Neill also happens to be a big player in the media industry, leading out-of-home company QMS as CEO. He has also worked at Ooh Media, Media Puzzle and Eye Corp.

With ownership of QMS moving from Quadrant to Nine, an exchange between Hawkes and O’Neill on Giddy Up this week included ribbing about the $850m sale.

In racing, media programming is funded by wagering firms, and Giddy Up growth is closely linked to betting dollars. Driving the move to Racing.com five days a week is a partnership with Bet365.

The nuts and bolts

Hall explained many of the live video crosses are done using the Australian developed streaming software vMix. Many of the guests also come to the show via audio only on their phones. Others range from those with an elaborate home studio, through to some callers sitting in their cars or at home making a Facetime call.

That combination of tech, sometimes not working at it should, makes the show feel authentic as the contributors all have one thing in common – a passion for the sport.

In addition to contributors like Hawkes and O’Neill, Hall reeled off the names of big name regulars on his show. The list includes jockeys James McDonald, Mark Zahra, and Andrew Mallon, and also trainers Chris Waller, Ciaron Maher and Sam Freedman.

“We also have good form experts like David Gately who’s a legend of the racing game and he joins me Thursday. On Fridays we have the popular Mark Hunter.”

Hall puts together his 20 hours of live radio a week with a small team. His producer is a youngster he got from Sky Racing, Louie Clifton, while working the panel is Paul Sebastiani who is also heard on air as an analyst on Giddy Up and a range of other SEN programming.