Mumbrellacast: Radio’s rough end to 2019, the curiosity of The Cat, and govt axes Department of the Arts

This week, the Morrison government abolished the Department for Communications and Arts, shifting communications into the Department for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications and not acknowledging the arts at all. The Mumbrellacast team talks through what this means for the media marketing and advertising industry, including why some of the biggest media bodies in Australia refused to comment to Mumbrella editor, Vivienne Kelly, about the shunning of the portfolio.

Also this week more changes took place in radio. Wil Anderson departed from Hot Breakfast on Triple M in Melbourne, Bianca Dye and Mike Van Acker left 97.3 FM breakfast in Brisbane, and Kate Langbroek will not return for the Hit Network’s Hughesy and Kate in 2020. Nova was also the last of the commercial radio networks to suffer a round of redundancies. The team wonders if this is just the period of change that radio had coming and discusses the market conditions it reflects.

Plus, Antony Catalano and Bruce Gordon indicated they might make a move to block Seven’s merger with Prime Media, as together they own 26% of the shares in the regional media body. The team ponders: When did regional media become the new sexy thing to own, and whether the pair will burst into the chapel and object right as the marriage is taking place?

In the news

• Redundancies at Nova (0:36)
• Seven struggles with Prime merger (8:23)
• Scott Morrison drops the Department of Communications and Arts (18:14)

Sponsored segment: Audio diaries

• Eardrum’s Ralph Van Dijk speaks to Lion Dairy & Non Alcoholic marketing and innovation director, Darryn Wallace (35:33)

Subscribe through iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.

Alternatively, copy and paste the following link into your favourite podcast feed reader: https://feeds.mumbrella.com.au/MumbrellaPodcast

Music credit: RetroFuture Clean Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Hard Boiled Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

Zoe Wilkinson

Zoe Wilkinson was a reporter at Mumbrella and the producer of the Mumbrellacast from March 2019 to May 2021.

topics 97.3 FM Antony Catalano Bianca Dye Bruce Gordon Hit Network Kate Langbroek Mike Van Acker Mumbrellacast Nova Prime Media Scott Morrison Seven The Department of Communications and Arts triple M

Share Tweet Share