Triple M flips Sydney breakfast and drive

4pm update: The below story is now being reported as an April Fool prank.

Southern Cross Austereo’s Triple M has moved its Rush Hour NSW team into the Sydney breakfast slot, and switched current hosts Beau Ryan, Cat Lynch and Aaron Woods into its Sydney drive slot.

This move mirrors the recent switch at Nova, where Fitzy, Wippa, and Kate moved into the network’s national drive slot, while Ricki-Lee Coulter and Tim Blackwell slotted into Sydney breakfast.

Rival ARN’s Gold 101.7’s long-time breakfast hosts Amanda Keller and Brendan Jones also moved into the drive slot at the start of the (ratings) year.

As Triple M’s media release notes: “With other Sydney breakfast shows making the move to Drive, they’re officially making the move to see what all the fuss is about.”

The switch took place this morning, with no prior warning. Usual listeners of the Beau, Cat and Woodsy show were instead greeted by rugby league personalities Anthony Maroon, Millie Elliott, and Nathan Hindmarsh.

This move comes less than a month since Triple M launched an out-of-home campaign poking fun at the changing face of Sydney breakfast radio, declaring the nine-month-old Beau, Cat and Woodsy show “Sydney’s longest running breakfast team (since Tuesday)”, following the collapse of the Kyle and Jackie O show on Kiis.

Millie Elliott, Anthony Maroon, and Nathan Hindmarsh. Inserting a footy-heavy team into Triple M breakfast is a good way to scoop up the male audience left behind by Kyle Sandilands, Fitzy, Wippa and Kate, and Jonesy and Amanda

Speaking to Mumbrella a fortnight ago, about the flux in Sydney radio, SCA’s head of broadcast audio Matthew O’Reilly said, “from a Triple M point of view, we see an opportunity to get males from all of those stations. Kyle was very male appeal, as were Fitzy and Wippa. Jonesy and Amanda are ex-Triple M staffers back in the day … we definitely see an opportunity there to gather some males from everywhere.

“We’re very clear that our biggest opportunity to grow ratings, share, audience, is in the Sydney market over the next couple of months.”

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