Onward, Christian
Big changes are coming at ARN.
Industry insiders say Christian O’Connell, the popular Brit who hosts breakfast on Melbourne‘s Gold 104.3, will be networked to Sydney‘s Gold 101.7, formerly WSFM.
Think Kyle and Jackie O in reverse – except we’re told ‘this will actually work’.
If our sources are correct – and they usually are – O’Connell will replace Gold 101.7’s long-serving duo Amanda Keller and Brendan ‘Jonesy’ Jones.
In the game of radio musical chairs, Jonesy and Amanda are expected to move to drive, bringing to an end a remarkable two decades in the breakfast slot.
An insider tells us ARN has budgeted almost $1.5million for an upfronts presentation in Q4, where it’s expected they will make the announcement.
O’Connell is already syndicated at night across the rest of the network and he’s made no secret of his ambitions to expand his live breakfast audience beyond Melbourne.
Industry insiders say Christian O’Connell (pictured), the popular Brit who hosts breakfast on Melbourne’s Gold 104.3, will be networked to Sydney’s Gold 101.7, formerly known as WSFM
If our sources are correct – and they usually are – O’Connell will replace Gold 101.7’s long-serving duo Amanda Keller (left) and Brendan ‘Jonesy’ Jones (right), who are moving to drive
ARN management has already made it clear ‘there is a life for the [Christian O’Connell] show outside of Melbourne’.
Tellingly, when we asked them about Jonesy and Amanda being booted from Sydney breakfast, we received no denials.
We all know what that means…
Kyle and Jackie bound for Brissy
As for KIIS 106.5 duo Kyle Sandilands and Jackie ‘O’ Henderson, the big question is whether ARN will roll them out nationally, after their Melbourne expansion was a bust.
In addition to their ratings issues on KIIS 101.1, word on the street is there’s a revenue shortfall in Melbourne as brands are wary of advertising.
They’re telling agencies they love KIIS, but don’t want to be near Kyle and Jackie O. This isn’t a problem in Sydney because of the ratings – not so south of the border.
We’ve heard talk of commercials being repeated or bundled with bonus ads on Gold as a sweetener. Bear in mind, ARN is paying $400,000 a week for this show.
As for KIIS 106.5 duo Kyle Sandilands and Jackie ‘O’ Henderson, the big question is whether ARN will roll them out nationally, after their Melbourne expansion was a bust
Still, despite these grim realities, we hear the KJ train is going to steamroll into more markets – maybe even as early as next year.
Sandilands is said to be confident he can win over Brisbane and won’t face the same hurdles as in Melbourne, where the latte set turned up their noses.
It’s a smaller, less competitive market – and he’s a Queensland boy, after all.
Keen listeners have already noticed Sandilands and Henderson treating their show like it’s national, reading the weather for Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
If the move does happen, it’ll mean KIIS 97.3 dropping its current (underperforming) breakfast show, Robin & Kip with Corey Oates.
For what it’s worth, ARN’s Chief Audience and Content Officer Lauren Joyce told Mediaweek last week: ‘Do I think the show is universally entertaining? Yes. Are we planning to take the show into other markets at this point? No.’
Again, that’s not a denial…
The band’s back together
The old news.com.au band is back together again at Nine newspapers – and not everyone is happy.
First, Luke McIlveen – the former news.com.au editor who took the masthead to its heights before getting poached by none other than Daily Mail Australia – was appointed last year as executive editor of Nine newspapers.
Then it was Lisa ‘Muxo’ Muxworthy – McIlveen’s former deputy who went on to become editor-in-chief. After News Corp made her redundant in May 2024, she was brought on board last December in the new role of Head of Growth Content at Nine’s metro mastheads.
Apart from working with McIlveen at the Manly Daily and news.com.au, she was also an editor under Kate De Brito. De Brito worked at news.com.au as news editor, then later as editor-in-chief, before having a break and returning to News Corp to helm the ill-fated live streaming service News Flash, which folded in under two years.
Now – guess what – De Brito has been hired as the deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review, raising the hackles of some reporters who may have believed that the Fin is a higher-minded masthead than the likes of anything at News Corp.
By pure coincidence, De Brito happens to be married to McIlveen, which could be helping to save on the morning commute to Nine’s North Sydney offices.
Charity case
So Equality Australia failed not once, not twice, but three times to convince the charity regulator, a tribunal, and finally the Federal Court that it was anything other than a well-dressed lobby group with a charitable-sounding name.
Fair enough, the system worked, until it didn’t.
Enter Assistant Charities Minister Andrew Leigh, with pen in hand and apparently no concern for precedent, process or principle.
Despite the full machinery of independent oversight declaring that Equality Australia was ineligible for Deductible Gift Recipient status, Leigh waved it through anyway, using his ministerial discretion.
What a win for ‘equality’! Unless, of course, you’re one of the hundreds of other advocacy groups that doesn’t get a ministerial back scratch.
Let’s not forget that the CEO of the anything-but-equal Equality Australia, Anna Brown, used to be a Labor staffer. Or that Albo’s hand-picked Governor-General Sam Mostyn became a patron shortly before Leigh’s decision was made.
Equality Australia might preach fairness and equality, but preferential treatment of the Orwellian kind doesn’t really match up with that.
Some organisations, it seems, are more equal than others.
Basil makes a powerful enemy
WA Liberals leader Basil Zempilas used a press conference this week to distance himself from his own party members who voted to reject the zero emissions target and the use of the Aboriginal flag at formal occasions.
Zempilas also pointed out that criticisms of such things had been embraced by the federal Liberals ahead of the last election – which Peter Dutton lost in a landslide.
His message was clear: reject sensible environmental policy and embrace right-wing culture wars, and you’re drinking electoral poison.
All pretty innocuous stuff, right?
Not according to lobby group Advance Australia, who clearly felt personally attacked and wasted no time breathlessly labelling Zempilas ‘just another Net Zero loser’.
Advance’s dirt-digger-in-chief Matthew Sheahan later told The Australian that Zempilas had made ‘a big mistake on the weekend by selling out battling Aussies instead of voting to dump net zero.
‘If Basil Zempilas thinks hiking power bills and taking land off farmers is an election winner, he may as well quit now.’ Sounds like a warning shot…
WA Liberals leader Basil Zempilas (pictured with wife Amy) made an enemy out of firebrand lobby group Advance this week for distancing himself from his own party members who voted to reject the zero emissions target and the use of the Aboriginal flag at formal occasions
Advance Australia wasted no time breathlessly labelling Zempilas ‘just another Net Zero loser’
Now, Basil is probably right about those talking points being off-putting to mainstream Australia… but that old saying about not throwing stones from glass houses has never applied more clearly than it does in this case.
You see, the erstwhile Lord Mayor of Perth only entered state parliament at the last election, running in the traditionally safe western suburbs seat of Churchlands.
In the sort of close result he would have loved calling in a footy match, the former Seven sports commentator only won by the barest of margins, scraping home with 51.1 per cent of the vote.
And the WA Liberals themselves only won seven seats in the 59-member lower house – less than 12 per cent of the seats on offer. While Team Dutton didn’t exactly fire at the 2025 federal election, it still won 43 out of 151 seats. In the world of comparative politics, that’s head and shoulders above Basil’s mob.
A WA Liberal insider reckons Zempilas might not even last in the leadership until the next election – which he can’t win anyway. He also won’t want the rules for electing the leader to change anytime soon – for example, by giving party members a say – not after he just poked them in the eye.
So, with all that said, it’s pretty astounding to see someone in such a vulnerable position politically come out and declare what is and is not acceptable discourse within his own ranks.
Meanwhile, the speed and aggression with which Advance attacked Zempilas strongly suggests that someone from the WA Liberals is leaking against him.
Finding out who shouldn’t be too hard because there aren’t that many of them.
We can confirm Basil didn’t leak against himself – so that only leaves six others to interrogate…
Doing A-OK
Inside Mail spied troubled TV star Andrew O’Keefe at the funeral of Surry Hills publican Margaret Hargreaves at St Mary’s Church in North Sydney on Tuesday afternoon.
Hargreaves was the landlady of the Shakespeare, a popular watering hole near Central Station, for an impressive 50 years. She sold the pub last year to Laurence Collins for about $10million.
Inside Mail spied troubled TV star Andrew O’Keefe at the funeral of Surry Hills publican Margaret Hargreaves at St Mary’s Church in North Sydney on Tuesday afternoon
Hargreaves was the landlady of the Shakespeare, a popular watering hole near Central Station, for an impressive 50 years
O’Keefe has family ties to Hargreaves, though they aren’t blood-related. The church was teeming with the big-name Catholic families of the lower north shore, as well as the many players in media and hospitality who came into Margaret’s orbit.
We thought the 53-year-old former Deal or No Deal presenter was looking better than he has done in a while. ‘He was seriously belting out hymns,’ remarked one onlooker.
O’Keefe was greeted warmly by Foxtel boss Patrick Delany, who worked at the Shakey – as the pub is known – when he was a young man. He and O’Keefe shared a good chat and exchanged numbers before parting ways.
It was a welcome sight after a catastrophic fall into drug addiction that saw O’Keefe almost succumb to a heroin overdose at his Vaucluse home last December.
He would have died had it not been for the life-saving CPR provided by Elisha Dalah, the kleptomaniac Sydney socialite who had supplied the drugs.
Alan’s fair-weather friends
Broadcaster and accused groper Alan Jones didn’t just keep a spreadsheet featuring all the prominent Australians he has lent money – he has another list of famous names in his head as well.
It was revealed this week that police had taken possession of a dossier detailing Jones’s financial dealings with a galaxy of media figures, business identities and sports stars.
Detectives seized the document, which showed precise amounts of money various individuals had borrowed from the onetime radio king, when they searched his Sydney harbourside home last November.
Jones is facing 20 charges of indecent assault, 11 of aggravated indecent assault, and two each of sexual touching and common assault, allegedly committed against young men between 2001 and 2019. The former 2GB breakfast host has vehemently denied any wrongdoing and indicated he will plead not guilty to each charge.
While he awaits a hearing, Jones has been considering the good deeds he has done for others over the years, and comparing that assistance with the support he has received in return.
Alan Jones (seen outside court last December) hasn’t just kept records of everyone who owes him money – he also remembers all the media types who owe him favours dating back decades
‘He’s had great support behind the scenes from many,’ a source close to the 84-year-old tells Inside Mail.
‘There have been many journalists who came to Jones over the years, begging for work, assistance or advice, who he was only too happy to help.
‘He’s now seething that many of those same people who’ve reported or commented on his matter have never disclosed the personal help they received from Jones.’
Jones appears to be particularly unhappy with former media allies he resents for not sticking to his long-held ‘pick and stick’ ethos.
‘He knows what he’s done for those people and is only too happy to disclose that when the time is right,’ the source adds.
‘A lot of media personalities will have egg on their face.’
The source suggests that Jones was involved in one radio executive getting a job about six years ago by ‘putting a word in for him’ after he left a television network.
However, Inside Mail has been assured this individual was hired without any input from Jones and on merit alone.
One erstwhile colleague who has publicly distanced himself from Jones is fellow talkback broadcaster Ray Hadley.
Our source reckons that’s an unforgivable sin after Jones ‘was one of the first to reach out to Ray when his son was busted with cocaine’ in a matter that was later dismissed on mental health grounds. (In our view, a simple act of kindness like that is hardly putting your neck out, but Jones clearly feels differently.)
After Jones was arrested, Hadley said their relationship had ‘soured five years ago’ and even hinted he might be called to give evidence against him.
Albo’s last laugh at his ‘nemesis’
Anthony Albanese had his cheeky boots on in Question Time on Tuesday, tossing out barbs with the kind of glint you only get after finally turfing an irritant out of parliament.
When new Labor MP Renee Coffey rose from the backbench, Albo grinned at the woman who won Griffith back from Greens thorn-in-the-side Max Chandler-Mather, then remarked: ‘My favourite member for Griffith… in a while.’
Not quite ever, of course. That would’ve been a slap in the face to Terri Butler, the Labor Left frontbencher and close Albo ally who lost the seat to Chandler‑Mather in 2022.
Still, the dig at Chandler-Mather was delicious – revenge served with parliamentary etiquette and a smirk. Labor’s backbench loved it – and the Coalition too, when Albo noted that there wouldn’t be too many tears across the parliament following the former member’s defeat. Laughs could be heard here, there and everywhere.
But then came the missed opportunity. Education Minister Jason Clare took a Dorothy Dixer from Sarah Witty, Labor’s new member for Melbourne, who toppled none other than Adam Bandt, the former Greens leader and serial parliamentary disruptor.
Did Clare land the same kind of zinger? Not even close, even though Albo had clearly laid out the pathway in front of him just minutes earlier. Albo: 1. Jason: 0.
And the nominees are…
An interesting name appeared in the Kennedy Awards nominees list released this week.
In the Outstanding Crime Reporting category, The Tele was recognised for its scoop on the Dural caravan plot, by Mark Morri, Josh Hanrahan and Clementine Cuneo.
It’s not altogether unusual to see these three get a nod – though perhaps it will be a little awkward this year as Cuneo was ‘disappeared’ from the paper in late June.
The veteran tabloid operator took News Corp to court over her redundancy and the matter is believed to have been quietly settled.
Redemption tour
Politicians do love to celebrate an anniversary – if only because it allows them to break out the canapés and wine.
This week marked the all-important 45th anniversary of the Moscow Olympics, with athletes who defied the Australian government’s wishes to boycott the event because of Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan honoured during Question Time by the PM.
Sussan Ley also spoke, perhaps more appropriately focusing on the athletes who trained for years but didn’t go, in accordance with the government’s request.
Who will be the next athletes honoured for disobeying official directives?
Surely not the 1982 rebel cricket tour of South Africa during the apartheid era? The 45th anniversary falls in two years’ time. Let’s see what Albo does.
We’re pretty certain that moment will pass without ceremony.
