New Southern Cross CEO Grant Blackley says ‘improvements needed’ in some areas
Incoming CEO of Southern Cross Austereo Grant Blackley and chairman Peter Bush have signalled that its troubled Sydney radio station 2Day Hit 104.1FM is their “number one challenge”.
The comments were made in an interview with Mumbrella following yesterday’s announcement of the appointment of the former CEO of Network Ten as the replacement to former CEO Rhys Holleran.
“Our number one challenge is to recover in one station in Sydney,” said Bush, referring to 2Day. “We dominate in Melbourne and everybody seems to forget the broader performance of the business – regional radio is very strong and it is very early days for (Hit Network) to build share and loyalty.”
Southern Cross Austereo has seen a turbulent 18 months in which profits tumbled last year after its previously top-rated radio station 2Day crashed to the bottom of the ratings following the loss of Kyle Sandilands and Jackie Henderson to rivals KiisFM.
Ok I like you Grant and respect the work you did at Channel 10 in the early days but don’t listen to the SCA management who tell you that things are going to be alright and you just have to focus on 2dayFM. Thats what they’ve been saying for 18 months now. Please take a different approach in market and acknowledge that the business and stations are in really bad shape. Its not just 2dayfm.
All the Hit stations are at the bottom or second to bottom in their markets
There’s not a single successful breakfast show on Hit
The Hit rebranding is an unmitigated failure, standing for nothing and hemorrhaging audience even with teens and 18-24yo’s which are the demo.
H&A coming back have little influence over the overall 10+ share as drive contributes very little to overall station share
Revenue is off the cliff
outside of Melb, all Triple M stations are irrelevant
staff are jumping ship by the truckloads
And even with all this, you want us to think everything is looking good with just a little bit of focus on 2dayfm.
Be honest, transparent, acknowledge the huge issues and maybe the industry will support this once great business to get back on its feet again
2Day currently number 8 in the BrandData engagement rankings, posting very low engagement compared to some surprising stations. Radio generally posts extraordinarily high engagement rates compared to most of the other 169 categories on the system.
Shane certainly sounds like a man whos “been there done that.” Certainly 2Day has “Hilly” terrain in front of it but id be backing the management team there to get it right.
Never heard of the brand data engagement rankings. Are they relevant?
Shane you’re at it again… I think you need to let it go ….
Exciting times for the team at Southern Cross Austereo.
New board, new chair, new CEO and a great leadership group that will turn it around…
Shane – you sound like an expert maybe you should ask Grant for a job!!!. Don’t you reckon before accepting the top job he would know of the challenges ahead of him – basically 2 R’s = Ratings equals Revenue. The Grant Blackley that I have known since he was at George Patts will get in, ascertain what needs to be done and the leaky bucket and fix it. He will identify the right people to be on the team or not and get on with it. Just a view of someone who knows GB well and also spent a considerable time at AEO when it was pretty dominant but some tell tale signs started to emerge.