James Cridland

ACMA: You Should Kick Kyle off FM Radio

A taxi ad for Magic Radio in London

Above: as spotted by Radioland reader Ian in, presumably, central London - some nice marketing for “Magic Radio” (as I notice it’s now also called on-air, with some fancy new jingles. Wonder who did TheM?).

Much media movement in Australia.

SCA are to merge with Seven West Media. That brings together Australia’s largest radio company worth $206mn (owners of 86 stations including TripleM and the Hit network), and Australia’s second biggest television network worth $223mn (and the leading newspaper in West Australia). It’s subject to two separate regulatory approvals, though both are unlikely to be major show-stoppers. As a merger, it makes good sense - two similiar-sized companies with plenty of synergies to benefit from.

Meanwhile, trouble at ARN. ACMA, the Australian media regulator, has again ruled against ARN’s Kyle & Jackie O, for “repeatedly and deliberately [airing] content that is vulgar, sexually explicit and deeply offensive”. ACMA has so far found twelve breaches in 2025 alone. ACMA, the wettest of all global media regulators, is currently - oooh - thinking about what to do next.

A day after ACMA nervously released their timid pronouncement, ARN’s CEO, Ciaran Davis, announced he was to step down. He’ll be replaced by Chief Operating Officer, Michael Stephenson. The ACMA report wasn’t mentioned.

ACMA has the power to pull K&J off the public radio spectrum. They have the power to pull the licences for KIIS in Sydney and Melbourne altogether. Or, they have the power to do nothing at all, except wring their hands in an awkward way - Prime Minister Anthony Albanese went to Kyle’s wedding, after all, so who’d want to upset one of the Prime Minister’s friends?

However, it’s difficult to square a wet and weedy ACMA decision with Australia’s upcoming ban of all social media websites for under 16s, which comes into force in December. Why should YouTube be banned in December to under 16s, when you can listen to much worse content (read the full ACMA investigation for the eye-watering transcripts) on an FM station during the school run? How can Anthony Albanese claim he’s “on the side of families” when his own media regulator allows this kind of content to continue on free-to-air FM radio?

I’d suggest that ACMA have no option but to act, quickly and decisively: and require that K&J are removed from public broadcast spectrum for a twelve month period. K&J can continue their lurid games behind an age verification tool on the company’s iHeart Radio app.

Curiously, this would be good for Australians - who wouldn’t hear this crap on the FM dial; good for pressure group MFW who have been successfully persuading advertisers to boycott the program (see their Facebook page for more); and good for ARN and K&J, who, “uncensored and free”, could have a significant effect on the takeup of online radio for those who really want it.

RCS

Classifieds

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  • With the plethora of social media tools these days, it can be difficult to monitor them all. So, congratulations to Radioland supporter Studiio, who have launched a very cool-looking studio panel that brings together all your messages together, including email, along with weather info and a phone system. The company is based in Melbourne VIC, and has been operating for seven years under the name Broadcast Launch. (I guess they’ve finally, um, launched!)

  • I was interviewed about FM switchoff, and DAB+/IP, for Italian publication Newslinet.

  • I have a new portable travel radio. Chances are that the readers of this email will be the ideal audience for it - it’s the Deepelec DP-666, which I have reviewed in tedious length on my blog. It’s the geekiest, least-consumer friendly radio you’ll see. But I bet you’ll want one too.

  • After I was sad about the lack of awards for radio and audio in Australia, after the closure of the ACRAs, Radioland reader Danae Gibson of RTRFM reminds me of the continued existence of the CBAA Community Broadcasting Awards.

  • RAJAR released the MIDAS study for Summer 2025. A comprehensive look at all the different types of audio listened-to in the UK; with a nice graph showing the growth of “connected audio” (which is increasing significantly both in terms of reach but also time-spent). “Catch-up radio” is separated out in this survey (p16), and consumption of that is interesting to see - computers account for 20% of listening-time, and mobile phones for almost three times as long: 58% of listening-time.

  • Speaking of catch-up radio - a month after I last mentioned it, worthwhile quietly pointing it out again: the BBC (international) website contains lots of play buttons to listen-again to Radio 4 output; the BBC (international) app on mobile contains no such buttons at all. For the reasons why this makes no sense, please re-read the previous paragraph.

Where I am speaking next

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