Jonesy and Amanda could replace dumped Marty Sheargold
Triple M bosses are amassing a war chest as they look to replace dumped host Marty Sheargold, with an unlikely duo said to be in their sights.
The departure of poster-blokes Marty Sheargold and Mark Geyer from the Triple M airwaves has presented radio bosses with a war chest with which to rebuild the station’s fading fortunes.
Sheargold’s contract alone should save Triple M $2-million-a-year while Geyer’s was said to be worth $1 million.
Sheargold and Triple M “mutually agreed to part ways” in late February after enormous backlash to his comments about the Matildas and women’s sport.
Add to these the savings accrued with the departures of Gus Worland, Leisel Jones, Liam Flanagan and Ben Dobbin from Brisbane’s The Rush Hour, Luke Bona and the production team behind The Night Shift and, as of last week, Natarsha Belling, who departed Triple M’s new Sydney breakfast show and radio bosses should have the coin to recruit not one but two of the most valuable, if not most underrated, legacy stars of Australian radio, Amanda Keller and Brendan Jones.
Word of a potential move on Keller and Jones came to light this month when the CEO of Triple M’s parent company, SCA, let slip his interest in the GoldFM breakfast duo.
“They should be on our network. We’d love to have them,” John Kelly told Mediaweek, adding that he saw the duo on Triple M and not on sibling station 2DayFM.
Keller and Jones’s contracts lapse at the end of the year so Kelly’s statements are timely.
It will apply some heat at SCA with insiders revealing morning Melbourne Gold FM star Christian O’Connell has also been in talks to move into the breakfast slot, potentially replacing Keller and Jones in the breakfast slot.
Then again, it might just be flack to distract from last year’s abandoned merger with rival ARN and the possibility SCA is just talking the talk while reducing costs in the event the talks are reignited.
After 20 years on air together, evergreen duo Keller and Jones remain relevant and funny and would represent value for money in a landscape up-ended by ARN’s $200-million 10-year deal with Kyle Sandilands and Jackie ‘O’ Henderson.
Keller’s radio contract is said to be worth $2.5 million-a-year while Jones is on about $2 million.
The duo is the only FM radio partnership who can claim to have consistently mounted a serious challenge to Sandilands and Henderson, their ARN stablemates, over two decades in the Sydney market, this despite having less resources and marketing.
In the latest GFK radio ratings, published December 2024, Keller and Jones finished second behind the KIISFM duo in the breakfast FM race in Sydney.
Notably, Keller and Jones’s station GoldFM finished well ahead of Triple M in the radio survey by four share points with a 9.6 market share to Triple M’s 5.6 share.
We put a series of questions to Triple M content boss Dave Cameron on Thursday about the content strategy for Triple M going forward, the CEO’s remarks concerning Keller and Jones and the likelihood of SCA yet being acquired by rival ARN (which was tipped to see Triple M move into the ARN coffers), but he failed to respond by publication time.
Home sweet home
In news that’s bound to bring comfort to Terry Biviano fans, the one-time shoe designer finally made it onto the small screen of Binge’s Real Housewives of Sydney during the week.
Nine minutes before the closing credits of ep three/season three rolled, the former NRL WAG graced the screen in a sheer gown which drew some serious eye-rolling from the other seven Housewives and some meaningless and insincere heart-to-hearts all around.
Having failed to participate in pre-publicity for the current season of the program, there were those of us who questioned whether Biviano would make it back onto the show.
It seems that despite wanting to have some “time out … from everyone” The Real Housewives of Sydney program offered something Biviano couldn’t, in the end, say no to.
Cold hard cash.
And that’s good news for the patient residents of Hopetoun Avenue in the Sydney suburb of Vaucluse who this week informed this column the house Biviano has been building with husband Anthony Minichiello is at last, or so it seems, nearing completion. After 11 years.
It was back in 2014 that the upwardly mobile couple bought a fixer-upper Hopetoun Avenue for $3.1 million.
In 2022 former Roosters’ star Minichiello assured this columnist cashflow issues hadn’t slowed construction of the couple’s dream home.
The pandemic, associated supply chain hold-ups and complaints from aggrieved neighbours prompting adjustments however had.
As the build dragged on and on, Biviano was quick to shoot down claims the couple had bitten off more they could chew: “If we couldn’t afford (the house), we’d have sold it,” she told us in 2022 as the house neared lockup, five years into its construction schedule.
At the time Minichiello said the couple had already knocked back offers to buy the unfinished home.
Golden oldie
How hard is it to find a Golden Bachelor?
Pretty hard, we gather.
According to television sources, Nine had a devil of a time finding and signing off on a suitable bachelor for its latest matchmaking show, The Golden Bachelor (not to be confused with shower …) now finally in production at a mansion in the swank harbourside Sydney suburb of Elizabeth Bay. The show will be hosted by Samantha Armytage.
After initially scouting for talent at Royal Randwick racetrack last year (something well-heeled and sloppy women alike have been doing in Sydney for decades) it seems TV producers have finally settled on a cleanskin widower with a background in data centre management.
His name, Barry Myrden, according to media reports this week.
The search for a “cleanskin”, in Sydney, is said to have created some issues for producers.
Prior to Myrden’s casting, industry wags claimed so desperate had Nine become during its search for a mature-age bachelor, network stalwart Sam Newman’s name had been raised in one think tank.
We gather it was a joke, as too were suggestions ex-cricketer Michael Slater and Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith, might also have been contenders despite being single and ready to mingle.
Seb shocked by departure
Seb Costello’s departure from Nine last Friday had been talked about in media circles as far back as 2017.
The resignation comes months after Nine launched an internal investigation into Costello’s pursuit of finance company executive Mo Ahmed in the toilet of a Melbourne hotel last year.
As the son of former Nine chairman Peter Costello, the ACA reporter had been something of a protected species while his father sat on Nine’s board.
That was until June 2024 when Costello Sr resigned following an altercation with a reporter at Canberra airport.
His son was no stranger to controversy during his time at Nine.
In 2017, working as Europe Correspondent, he was forced to explain his absence from a series of live crosses from Barcelona following a terror attack, which left 13 people dead, and another 130 injured.
Nine promptly dispatched reporter Tom Steinfort to replace Costello, while he took three weeks leave.
Costello would later tell the Herald Sun he was “burned out” and needed a break.
“By the time I got to Barcelona, I landed on the Thursday night and in the middle of that story it all just kind of hit,” he previously told the Herald Sun.
“I burned out in that situation. I got home and we just decided to organise a bit of a break”.
Then in 2019 Seven’s Sunrise reporter Edwina Bartholomew found herself in hot water after she took aim at Costello in a tweet. She later apologised and is said to have handed over $20,000 to put a stop to legal action.
Back in Australia Costello faced new criticism in 2022 after his aggressive pursuit of ex-AFL player agent Ricky Nixon for A Current Affair saw Nixon investigated by police for allegedly striking Costello.
Sources close to Costello, who is now calling himself a “journalist/storyteller/event MC” on networking site LinkedIn, predict he may yet find a home on Melbourne radio or back under the wing of his former mentor Eddie McGuire.
Disaster draws TV audiences
Cyclone Alfred proved a ratings bonanza for television news programs last week.
From Thursday March 6 to Sunday March 9 audiences lifted across the dial as Australians tuned in to see if the nation’s east coast would survive the natural disaster.
The biggest winners were the commercial networks Seven and Nine on Thursday and Sunday nights.
Seven’s 6pm news bulletin was watched by an average audience of 1,002,000 people (five metros, total people) on March 6 and by an average 1,052,000 people on March 9.
That was up some 25 per cent on the corresponding period for the previous year when just 752,000 and 791,000 tuned in to watch the nightly news.
Nine meanwhile attracted an audience of 980,000 and 1,068,000 on the same days, up similarly from the previous year when 730,000 and 791,000 viewers tuned in.
ABC’s 7pm News recorded a small lift, finding 604,000 viewers on Thursday and 589,000 on Sunday, up from 475,000 and 519,000 for the same day previous year.
The breakfast news programs across all three broadcasters also lifted with Weekend Today on Saturday, March 8, recording the largest hike, with 55 per cent more viewers turning on to watch floodwaters rise than in the previous year, although the program was still beaten by Seven’s Weekend Sunrise which attracted 379,000 viewers to Weekend Today’s 357,000.
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