Shazam hunts new dance partner after SCA dumps nightly Top 20 countdown show
Southern Cross Austereo has dumped the Shazam Top 20 show after a little more than a year leaving the music discovery service searching for a new media partner.
London and O’Loughlin had hosted the show.
The duo entered a revenue sharing partnership in October 2014 for the weeknight show hosted by Angus O’Loughlin and Ash London, however SCA has moved to a new Hit 30 show pairing Emma Freedman with O’Loughlin.
“It was an SCA call,” Steve Sos, vice president of Asia Pacific at Shazam told Mumbrella. “There have been some changes to their programming this year and for whatever reason they felt that the Shazam Top 20 wasn’t a fit with whatever other changes they are looking to make.”
Sos would not comment on which media partners Shazam was in discussions with, but did make clear they were speaking with a number of parties.
“From our side everything about the show was incredibly positive,” he said. “All the metrics were positive and we are currently in discussions to see if we can take it elsewhere – not only from a radio perspective but also a TV broadcast perspective both locally and regionally.”
Shazam Top 20 replaced The Bump, which had been SCA’s national official music countdown show, with a new format which broadcast Australia’s most Shazamed songs based on a daily chart of songs Shazamed from consumer’s mobile devices.
SCA has also move former weather presenter Freedman, who won Dancing With The Stars last year, to a temporary co-hosting role on the show, replacing London who left the network last year.
Freedman, who has been co-hosting the Scoopla show with Jules Lund, made headlines last year when she was as the newsreader for Hamish & Andy in the drive slot at the same time SCA made a number of other newsreaders redundant.
“Emma is currently filling in temporarily on hit 30,” said Dave Cameron, head of the Hit Network. “We are yet to make any any talent /show announcements regarding nights on hit network in 2016.
“The Shazam agreement ran its term, and we are looking forward to announcing something exciting for 2016 in its place.”
Sos said he was sad to see the deal end but said the only cost was some lost ad revenue.
“We certainly weren’t paying anything for it,” he said. “There was ultimately a revenue share on sponsorship sales in return for providing our IP and data.
“It has given us a great blueprint for what was a global first in terms of format and certainly there were lots of eyes on it from our business around the world.
“Whether the name changes or elements change that will remain to be seen, but it is certainly a format that has legs going forward.”
Nic Christensen
The reason is that Shazam is no longer relevant and the show didn’t rate yo.
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