What's New
BY Sarah Patterson April 19, 2024
What's New February 25, 2018
Is Talking Lifestyle ready to pivot as George & Paul move to 2GB?
Change is in the wind at the Macquarie Media-owned Talking Lifestyle stations in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
Just last week it released an ASX statement outlining an operational review of the Talking Lifestyle format it introduced to 2UE in 2016 and later networked into Melbourne and Brisbane, in March last year.
The review is an acknowledgment that the performance of the stations have failed to meet expectations for the 2017 financial year, and any format changes wouldn’t “materially impact” earnings.
And it would appear those changes are now being rolled out. From next Saturday, George Moore and Paul B Kidd (pictured) will be heard on sister station 2GB, after ending 2017 with a 7.2 share of People 10+.
Mieke Buchan and Rob Duckworth, who handled Breakfast duties during the summer break, will take their place.
But does their deployment give us a hint at what Macquarie Media might have in mind for Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane? There’s been speculation it could mean a shift towards light talk-sport format, although it would struggle up against 1116 SEN in Melbourne.
Buchan has carved out a career in sports presenting and was part of the original Triple M Hot Breakfast line-up in Melbourne, while Duckworth has worked at just about every FM radio station in Sydney. Light talk-sport would certainly play to their strengths.
The other possibility is a low-cost, soft music format on the AM band. The big question is; would it be able to compete against the highly successful smoothfm brand in Melbourne and Sydney, and 4KQ in Brisbane.
Whatever the change, it would be the first major move by new CEO, Adam Lang.
Radio Today has reached out to Macquarie Media for comment.
I really question if a music format is a possibility anymore on AM. So many offerings on FM and DAB+ seems to direct AM signals towards being most suitable for talk.
That’s not to say you couldn’t conceptualise a format that incorporates some music (perhaps what they should have done from the start to avoid giving up entirely on the Magic audience).
George and Paul on 2GB makes sense. A renewed 2UE (or whatever is called now or in the future) ought to have a focus of its own outside of the model of conservative talking heads. The difficulty is finding a focus that’s ‘national’ (especially to address a Melbourne audiences, who almost switched off entirely after the loss of Magic).
So the The Continuous Call Team are now starting at 1pm on 2GB?
Something doesn’t make sense here…
Not no
Not happy with the change with George and Paul! It was perfect the way it was
Why is it being changed??
Diana ( earlier time suited me much better)
2GB are the number 1 rated station in Sydney from Monday to Friday
However, in the weekend 2GBs ratings drop.
The reason George & Paul where moved from 2UE to 2GB was to increase
2GBs ratings for the weekend.
A little birdy has told me that George & Paul do not like the move to 2GB
And that their could be further change ahead.
really happy that george & paul have moved from 2ue, they are much too conservative, sounded like the AM version of fox news .can we have our 2ue back?
Hi George and Paul, I stumbled on your program a couple of years ago. you were very different from the media I normally listened to but found your program very enjoyable with quizzes, historical information, crime files. really informative and someone I listen to each weekend as I travel around the country.