New host for My Generation
The nationally syndicated radio show My Generation is to go through another change of host.
After nine years, Australian Radio Network (ARN)’s Jonesy and Amanda team (Brendan Jones and Amanda Keller) announced yesterday that they will helm their final edition in late December.
Triple M’s Phil O’Neil takes over in 2017, with speculation that he will be joined each week by a revolving door of high profile musicians.
The move comes after the Authentic Entertainment radio production and syndication business was acquired in full by Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) a few months ago. My Generation will be broadcast through the Triple M network including SCA’s metro markets.
O’Neill has since October 2015 been hosting Triple M’s syndicated The Rubber Room.
He began in radio in 1993 in Adelaide, hosting a nightly program with then-wife Jackie O on Triple M called Phil O’Neil’s Hot 30. The duo moved to Melbourne when FOX took on the show as Hot 30 Countdown, and then to Sydney when it was aired on 2DAY FM and five other cities along the East Coast.
O’Neill (who at times used the on-air moniker Ugly Phil) then made a move to Nova 969 and its drive shift. In 2003 he returned to Austereo (as it was known then) and after a stint in the UK at Kiss FM and Kerrang Radio, returned to Australia and Triple M evenings.
He also worked in Perth, Brisbane and Newcastle. He once famously said, “When I am on the air I still treat it as the last shift I am ever going to do because most of the time it is!”
My Generation is a retrospective journey through the music, people and events of the 70s, 80s and 90s. Each week it focuses on one particular year, also covering its movies, politics, fashion and news.
Jones and Keller, of WS FM’s breakfast slot, were the show’s fourth hosts when they took over in its 12th year. Under previous presenter Jonathan ‘Jono’ Coleman, it had won two Australian Commercial Radio Awards for Best Syndicated Program and had 450,000 weekly listeners on 92 ARN stations.