Trio was pulling in so few listeners, it wasn’t funny

The decision by 2DAY radio bosses to pull the pin on its underperforming breakfast hosted by Dave Hughes, Ed Kavalee and Erin Molan comes as no surprise, writes Annette Sharp.

The decision by 2DAY radio bosses to pull the pin on its underperforming breakfast hosted by Dave Hughes, Ed Kavalee and Erin Molan had been coming since October 2023 (and predicted here earlier) when rival radio company ARN revealed it had launched a bid to acquire 2DAY parent company SCA.

With the expensive Hughes/Kavalee/Molan radio show struggling to make inroads in the breakfast slot and shedding about a third of its audience in the fourth and latest radio ratings (dropping from a 5 share to a 3.6 and finishing sixth behind 2GB, KIIS, WS, ABC, Smooth and Triple M), the writing was on the wall for the breakfast team whose appeal with 2DAY’s traditional female audience has always been in question.

Out they go.... Ed Kavalee, Dave Hughes and Erin Molan.

Hughes is under contract to SCA until the end of the year this column understands, providing his radio bosses with a window to both rest its highly paid star and create a new role for him.

Radio insiders are tipping Hughes will reunite with his former on-air partner Kate Langbroek, with whom he was in a successful radio partnership from 2001 to 2019 and return to the breakfast slot on SCA’s other commercial station, Triple M. The change of station would make sense with SCA still in merger talks with ARN, or so we hear, and any merger would necessitate the reconfiguration of company assets to maximise profit.

A question mark hangs over 2DAY’s future if the merger and redistribution of assets proceeds, with ARN already in possession of the dominant KIIS, home to Kyle and Jackie O.

However it’s Kyle and Jackie O’s failure to capture a solid early share in Melbourne following their foray into that market this year that appears to have refocused SCA’s attention on the southern capital, which also is Hughes’ hometown.

Ed Kavalee, Dave Hughes and Erin Molan at 2Day FM.

Reunited with Langbroek, the pair would be a force and, given SCA also boasts the Fox network down south, home to Fifi Box, Brendan Fevola and Nick Cody in the breakfast shift, SCA stands a better chance of withstanding KIIS’s well-funded assault.

Hughes, Kavalee and Molan were robbed of a chance to farewell their audience as 2DAY swiftly switched to a music-only format on Thursday, which some radio insiders predict may attract better ratings. It’s happened before.

Just last month Kavalee accused Molan of buttering up Seven’s new news boss Anthony De Ceglie for a job. Now we know why.