KIIS goodbye to Mix FM as ARN rebrands, takes it to Austereo
In this cross-posting from The Conversation marketing lecturer Gavin Lees examines whether ARN’s rebranding of Mix 106.5 will help Kyle and Jackie O retain their enormous 2DayFM audience.
ARN’s poaching of Kyle Sandilands and Jackie Henderson (known an Jackie O) to host the breakfast show in their soon to be rebranded Sydney station is an audacious move. It will involve rebuilding the station’s identity from Mix 106.5 to KIIS 1065. And it’s risky.
Already 2Day FM have announced a high-profile team of replacements, including Spice Girl Mel B, singer Sophie Monk, former TV host Jules Lund and former Nova DJ Merrick Watts. They haven’t wasted any time releasing promotional material.
There are question marks over whether Kyle & Jackie O’s enormous audience will follow them from 2Day FM, their home for 14 years. Is it worth the risk? Will the rebranding work?
This is an excellent article but I’m not sure if MTR comparisons are relevant. Firstly it was on AM where I think listeners are more loyal, also MTR suffered from very poor reception in many parts of Melbourne. It was almost impossible to commute while listening to it. And thirdly Melbourne does not have the same type of shock jock radio that Sydney has.
MTR was a probably an attempt to drive down the price on 3aw so it could be bought out. The other possibility is that someone actually thought people in Melbourne wanted to listen to Steve Vizard. KIIS is going to try and copy a format that already works in Sydney.
This will be a case study in years to come. And it wont read well for ARN. Grab a team that is on the way down, abandon your audience, confuse your advertisers with multiple brands/positionings, pay massive dollars to do so. K&J will be laughing all the way to the bank. Management at ARN will be lucky to last the year out…
I think the first true indication of their efforts will be reflected in Survey 3. There will be a hangover effect of K&J associated with 2DAY. The only announcer in recent history that has led an immediate affect is when Alan Jones left 2UE to go to 2GB. The other thing that will impact is the timing of relaunching the station KIIS, will people associate a new breakfast team with a new station? I feel for their other stablemate WSFM – again this station get’s left behind in marketing efforts and poor Jonesy and Amanda’s marketing will be limited to bus rears. After years of loyal service and consistent ratings, they surely deserve better
Any chance of an article that talks about which commercial stations ABC listeners are most likely to listen to? That would be fascinating.
Let’s not forget Kyle Sandilands and Jackie “O” Henderson have never been number 1.
They have always been well behind Alan Jones, and often the ABC.
I still haven’t forgotten their lie detector disgrace, the threat to hunt down a young female journalist, and their years of pranks and sleaze.