Drivetime shapes up as radio’s 2018 battleground after Hamish & Andy’s long goodbye
With five of the eight audience surveys for the year now complete, Australia’s commercial radio players are beginning to shift their focus to 2018. Mumbrella’s Zoe Samios rounds up programming bosses’ views on how they’re all travelling – and explores how drivetime is up for grabs next year
It has to be one of the longest notice periods in radio history. But nearly nine months after Hamish Blake and Andy Lee revealed that they’ll be departing radio – again – to focus on television, the industry is beginning to ask what national drivetime radio will look like without them.
One of the biggest unanswered questions for the radio industry this year is arguably the replacement of Southern Cross Austereo’s long-standing Hit Network drive show hosts Hamish Blake and Andy Lee, who are set to depart at the end of the year to focus on their television careers.
But just as importantly, ARN’s contract with Dave Hughes and Kate Langbroek, whose show airs in Sydney and Melbourne on Kiis, on 97.3 in Brisbane and Mix in Adelaide – is also up for renegotiation.
This week’s survey gave Gemma Fordham, SCA’s head of content for Hit Network, a taste of what life after Hamish & Andy could look like.
Wouldn’t it be that Blake is on paternity leave?
Thanks Dr. G., we’ve fixed that.
Paul Wallbank
News editor