Radio Wrap: ACRAs 2018 wrap-up, Melbourne music crossovers

Kyle & Jackie O take top gong at Australia Commercial Radio Awards

Radio’s night of nights the ACRAs took place in Melbourne last weekend, with KIIS 106.5’s Kyle and Jackie O taking out the Best On-Air Team (Metro FM) category.

This is the sixth time that Kyle Sandilands and Jackie ‘O’ Henderson, who were not in attendance, have won the top gong.

Last year’s best on-air metro FM team Kate, Tim and Marty didn’t go home empty-handed though, as the show won Best Networked Program and Best Syndicated Program, while Kate Ritchie took out the prize for Best Entertainment Presenter.

Gold Logie winner Grant Denyer won Best Newcomer for his role on 2DayFM Breakfast.

The awards have taken place in Melbourne for the last three years, but will head to Brisbane in 2019.

Full list of winners here.

Melbourne Spins: Nova 100 & KIIS FM share the most music

Following a recent analysis of music crossovers in Sydney, AirCheck has turned to Melbourne to analyse the extent to which the major stations in Victoria share their playlists.

It found that Nova 100 and KIIS 101.1 had the biggest crossover in the last four weeks, sharing 32.6% of their music, or 309 tracks.

The most played tracks between the two were the hugely popular ‘Be Alright’ by Dean Lewis and ‘Shotgun’ by George Ezra, which have spent a combined 10 weeks in the #1 spot on the TMN Hot 100 airplay chart.

The most interesting stat to come from AirCheck’s latest data dive came in the form of Gold104.3 and Triple Melbourne sharing 518 tracks during the four week period surveyed.

That equated to a 25.4% share of spins, with ‘Money For Nothing’ by Dire Straits the most played track across the two stations.

Youth radio network SYN Media gets $400K in government funding

Melbourne’s youth-orientated SYN Media has been granted state government funding of $400,000 over four years for Student Youth Network Media’s Youth in Community Radio program.

SYN has created new generations of radio presenters and producers throughout the years and will begin to receive the funding in 2019.

SCA to bounce back from “disappointing” FY18 despite “underperforming” 2DayFM

Southern Cross Austereo is expecting to bounce back from a “disappointing” financial year, said network chair Peter Bush at this week’s AGM.

He began his address by acknowledging that the “2018 financial year fell short our expectations.”

The results also saw a 5.3% fall in revenue to $654.1m, which came despite an increase in regional radio revenue, up by 4.5%, a seventh consecutive year of growth.

The SCA chair was frank when addressing the impact that 2DayFM’s continued poor performance has had on the network’s metro results overall.

Despite this. Bush highlighted the fact that “the group has begun the new financial year in a strong financial position and with positive momentum that we are aiming will return the group to growth in the current financial year.”

New alternative Aussie radio station Vibe Machine launches

Australia’s latest national alternative digital station is Vibe Machine.

Vibe Machine will focus on exciting new music, to be played alongside tunes from the music world’s rich history.

Founder and GM Josh Kiff says that listeners could hear a “new track from Camp Cope“, alongside Nirvana or even a band like Luca Brasi.

Speaking with Radio Today Kiff explains “I’ve never been one to just follow the most trodden path, it would be easy to say ‘You can’t change the systems in place, you can’t create something different and build it’ and that’s what stops a lot of people I believe.

You can tune in to Vibe Machine online or by searching for “Vibe Machine Radio” on the app stores.

Want more Australian radio news? Head over to TMN‘s sister site Radio Today for all the latest.