By Calum Jaspan
Nine Entertainment must now fill a Ray Hadley-sized hole in its radio line-up.
That’s no small challenge when you consider the 2GB presenter, who announced on Thursday he was stepping down, is its most consistent and reliable asset, delivering 160 consecutive survey wins in the crucial Sydney morning slot.
Ray Hadley announces his retirement from his eponymous 2GB morning show on Thursday.Credit: Kate Geraghty
It’s a move Nine may not be ready for but may have considered given the broadcaster is now 70 and has spent more than four decades in radio. He leaves in December with two lucrative years on his contract, rumoured to be in the region of $7 million as Nine’s top-paid star.
The early word from inside the Nine camp is there is no immediate or obvious replacement lying in wait, which wasn’t the case when controversial shock jock Alan Jones stepped down in late 2020.
A more commercially palatable Ben Fordham was an easy choice to replace Jones after a decade in the drive slot familiarising himself with the station’s audience and consistently topping the ratings.
Nine’s radio boss Tom Malone doesn’t have the Fordham lever to pull again this time, with Drive host Chris O’Keefe just two years into his efforts to revive that time slot.
Hadley is one of the last remaining shock jocks on Australian airwaves following the recent resignations of Neil Mitchell and John Laws. A lack of obvious candidates may offer Nine the chance to look deeper inside its stable and offer audiences a fresh voice.
Hadley’s departure comes at a difficult time. Nine is under financial pressure from a weak advertising market. It’s wrestling with the handling of a damning cultural review that stemmed from a harassment and bullying scandal. And it recently lost its chair and CEO.
Hadley addressed the cultural review when it was released, saying he believed he knew some of the perpetrators. He said he was an example of how people could change their behaviour at work and that 10 years earlier he’d decided his “rather robust” way of dealing with some matters had to change.
Nine’s radio division, which also owns 3AW in Melbourne, 6PR in Perth and 4BC in Brisbane, has high-profile talent and influence but is now a small part of the larger business.
With Nine’s market value under the $2 billion mark, the board at Nine’s AGM on Thursday was peppered with questions of whether they should spin streaming service Stan into its own business, or sell out of Domain to find extra value. Few asked questions about its radio business, which delivers just 2 per cent of Nine’s EBITDA.
“[Radio] is such a minuscule part of their empire ... it’s a real afterthought,” says Morningstar analyst Brian Han. “But if you believe in the whole integrated digital strategy, radio does play a role.”
Han says its value may be crystallised down the line if Nine gets involved in wider industry consolidation, but right now, tinkering with radio won’t move the needle for the business.
Macquarie Media was an attractive asset when Nine took a majority stake in 2018, part of the Fairfax merger that took The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age into the hands of the legacy TV business.
Just three years earlier, veteran ad-man John Singleton’s Macquarie Radio Network had merged with Fairfax Radio to create a national talkback entity housing 3AW and 2GB with headline talent including Hadley, Jones and Mitchell.
Macquarie’s final full-year EBITDA in 2017 totalled $29.4 million. The executives behind the merger hoped the combined sales proposition with television, radio and newspapers could elevate the business.
Yet few ad agencies now want to pay top dollar to reach the older demographics talkback stations attract, with a multitude of other new options such as TikTok and Amazon Prime to reach the holy grail of 25-54-year-olds.
In 2024, the audio division contributed $8 million in EBITDA, dropping two years consecutively, with senior Nine figures privately stressing the need to further balance the costs of the significant salaries their top presenters demand.
The work has begun, with Malone recently overhauling 6PR after posting losses, also making significant changes to its Brisbane line-up. A trading update on Thursday reported radio revenues up 6 per cent in the first quarter of FY25 as well.
Talkback listeners often tune in for companionship, as they have for decades with Hadley. Replacing him may be a golden opportunity, but right now, losing his consistent ratings is something they could do without.
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