James Cridland

Multiplatform Christian O'Connell: coming soon across Australia

DAB+ Digital Radio in an MG 4

Within hours of my post last week, ARN announced that the Christian O’Connell breakfast show was going “national”. The show will be on FM in Sydney; and (surprise) Gold will additionally broadcast on DAB+ and online in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.

In Radioland last week, I suggested that ARN should put Gold onto FM here in Brisbane rather than KIIS. Gold’s rollout here on DAB+ was seized by some of the trades as a “missed opportunity”, and I agree; but I’d underestimated the confusion in Australia about what DAB+ actually is and how much it’s used.

One “industry expert” said in the Media Week story that ARN will “probably now try to swindle some Sydney and Melbourne buyers into investing in the other markets by using O’Connell’s show … where he’s only being heard on the DAB+ band”. That ‘industry expert’ clearly doesn’t understand how radio is sold: you buy on a rate normally called “CPM”, or “cost per thousand listeners”. There’s no “swindling” going on from anyone.

Another, highly experienced, industry expert I’ve spoken to this week said, disparaging DAB+, that: “you can be guaranteed that a GenX/Boomer has no plans in changing a breakfast listening habit for a platform they’re barely even aware of.”

So, is it true that DAB+ is not listened-to? And that people are “barely aware” of it? It’s surprisingly hard to find the data: but I have. And here are the facts, for cap-city Australia: A third of Aussies use DAB+ each week to listen to the radio. More astonishingly, 40% of radio is not listened-to on an AM/FM radio.

Whether ARN will market Gold heavily here in Brisbane (they’ll need to market both the station and how to listen) remains to be seen. But even if they don’t put Gold onto FM, it’s a real opportunity for them for Gold to be on DAB+ here if they market it - even if the “industry experts” have found it as hard as I have to actually get the data.

RCS

Christian O’Connell sounded bullish and excited when I caught up with him on the phone this week.

I worked with him at Virgin Radio in London - and he was quick to remind me that for all the great figures he had in the UK, he was available on FM only in London - and on DAB (and a bad AM signal) elsewhere. He’s used to multi-platform radio - possibly more so than much of the Australian radio industry. He told me that there’s a need to educate the industry as to how people really listen to the radio.

As to whether people only want “local” radio, he pointed out a rather hypocritical message from many of the (yes, them again) industry experts. We’re told that people want radio to be local; but we’re also told how brilliant Hamish and Andy were. Radio companies spend cash marketing national afternoon drive radio shows - so why couldn’t it work at breakfast? He has a point.

Kyle & Jackie O have famously been keen to broadcast to Melbourne but not that interested in actually going there. Christian is prepared to put in the work to gain a Sydney audience; he told me that he’ll spend time in Sydney as well as Melbourne (not that you will always hear that on-air). He’ll be coming to other parts of Australia, too.

He sounded excited working with advertisers again - something that it sounded as though he has missed since his time in the UK. There’s a limit to how close you can be to advertisers if you’re only a local show - but he enjoyed spending time with national brands when in the UK, and sounds keen to do so here. And, yes, that does mean that he’ll spend time in Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide as well - there are a variety of large brands based outside of Melbourne and Sydney.

As to whether he’ll be welcomed in a different city… he told me about the text messages he had coming into the studio when Kyle & Jackie O were announced in Melbourne. “We don’t like people coming into this city,” said one listener. “You do remember that I came from the UK to do this job?” Christian reminded them. “Oh, but that’s different,” the listener replied. And, different it will be. He’s just got to wait five months to get going.

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I’m looking forward to being at Podcast Movement next week. If you’re in Dallas, I’ve next Sunday free, so shout if you know where to find a beer!

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