This was published 11 years ago
Buckle up breakfast radio, it's going to be a wild ride
By Neil McMahon
It's the most predictable part of a day and has long been the most predictable slot on the Melbourne radio dial – but in a blink, things have gone bonkers at breakfast.
Two powerhouse FM duos have quit in the space of a month – with Fox FM's Matt Tilley and Jo Stanley on Friday announcing that Nova's Dave Hughes and Kate Langbroek won't be the only team bidding the brekky wars goodbye at year's end. Neither move was expected, nor was the backdrop for the upheaval: a tight ratings race that has seen the top FM spot shared among three rivals this year.
Another pair bites the dust ... Fox FM breakfast hosts Matt Tilley and Jo Stanley call it a day, following in the footsteps of Nova's Dave Hughes and Kate Langbroek.
That's pretty bonkers in itself. Until this year, Tilley and Stanley hadn't lost a survey in six years. In 2013, they have lost three in a row, most recently coming third as perennial runners-up Hughes and Langbroek squeaked into first place. Fox's long-time champs came an unthinkable third, behind Eddie McGuire's Triple M team.
The remarkable month came on top of two remarkable years for the early-morning FM landscape.
On the way out ... Kate Langbroek and Dave Hughes are finished with Nova, for now.
Of the five leading FM stations in the Melbourne market – Fox, Triple M, Nova, Mix and Gold – only one (Triple M) will enter 2014 with the same breakfast team it had three years ago. Gold FM ditched 12-year veterans Grubby and Dee Dee at the end of 2011; Brigitte Duclos and Anthony Lehmann replaced them in 2012, vacating their breakfast studio at Mix for Chrissie Swan and Jane Hall. Now, Hughes and Langbroek are ending their 12-year collaboration, and Tilley and Stanley are winding up after a decade.
That leaves the FM dial an uncertain battleground in the year ahead, with no guarantee that whoever replaces these high-profile, long-running teams will inherit their audiences. Perhaps more than any other timeslot, success in breakfast radio is built on a foundation of informal, comfy familiarity – audiences connect with hosts and, crucially, need to sense that the hosts connect with each other.
None of those connections are easily made, which is surely why when a station hits on the right chemistry it tends to stick with it for so long. Fox and Nova, blessed for all these years with two standout double acts, now face the new year with a blank slate – and no doubt a bundle of nerves as they choose the successors.
Who they will be, nobody knows. Rising stars, household names – probably a blend of both. The choices will be intriguing, as will the results.
One thing is certain: there will be pain in making the wrong picks. In radio as in life, if you get breakfast wrong, you can really bugger up the rest of your day.