Broad Radio is a new radio station that started broadcasting loud, clear and fiercely this morning.
Spearheading the new broadcast offering is former Fox FM breakfast star Jo Stanley. Stanley was #1 in Melbourne FM breakfast radio for six years alongside Matt Tilley on The Matt & Jo Show on Fox FM. She then later teamed with Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann with The Jo & Lehmo Show on Gold 104.3.
The arrival of Stanley back open the airwaves is another challenge for Kyle and Jackie O who are jostling with all the other talented breakfast teams to secure a Melbourne audience.
But Broad Radio has even bigger ambitions. It’s not for a Melbourne audience. As Stanley tells Mediaweek below, the format will appeal to women in regional and country areas, right across Australia.
Broad Radio released its app online across the weekend. Music director Tracee Hutchison was hosting music on Sunday afternoon.
At 7am this morning, Stanley joined Hutchison on air for a pop-up breakfast show.
Meet the Morning Broads
The full station launch will take place from Monday October 7, with Broad Radio’s breakfast show – Morning Broads – with Stanley co-hosting with Marieke Hardy and Michala Banas.
Morning Broads: Michala Banas, Jo Stanley and Marieke Hardy
The full line-up of Broad Radio hosts will also be revealed on that day.
What we can reveal at this stage is the extended team will be made up of experienced presenters, broadcasters, sports commentators and journalists. The programming will include a Friday drive show and a weekly show that celebrates and shares First Nations women’s stories, their knowledge, their life lessons and music.
Along with breakfast shows and music stream, Broad Radio is also now offering a curated podcast network of various programs via its app.
To find out more, Mediaweek spoke with Jon Stanley.
Q&A with Broad Radio founder Jo Stanley
Jo Stanley has been working on the Broad Radio project for close to four years. (It started as a one-hour live weekly stream back in 2020.) She’s not drawn a wage in that time. Her husband Darren McFarlane came on fulltime about six months ago.
You’ve thought about this for a while, what pushed you over the edge?
The idea came to me when I was meditating. Every time I meditated, it was there. I got to a point where I thought, I feel like the universe is telling me something. I’m going to have to do this, or I’m going to be haunted by it for the rest of my life. That was the instigator that tipped me into action.
I was looking for radio that I could listen to that reflected my life stage. I couldn’t find anything.
As a lover of radio and the medium, and as someone who has witnessed how transformative radio can be for an individual as well as a community, I just saw a need.
Jo Stanley
What’s the business model?
There’s a great business case for it, because women control 80% of the household spending. There’s a great gap in the market that I was like, okay, there’s an opportunity there as well. But for me, largely, it was about the opportunity to create a new space for women, and also diverse voices, elevate diverse voices that you just don’t hear very often in mainstream media.
We will be launching a membership offering. It will be $8 a month, or $80 a year, and we will be building a community.
Who are your listeners?
There is not one listener. Because we’re internet radio, and we’re streaming, we are not limited to capital cities.
We’re very aware that we have an audience in remote and regional Australia, country Australia, that is able to access us in a way they can’t access mainstream capital city radio.
There are women in everyday life going about their business, trying to understand how to juggle the challenges of life.
Our core audience is probably 35 to 55.
Women who might have teenagers who are still at home or young adults still at home. Let me tell you, kids grow up and they still need parenting. They’ve got their parents who are aging, their careers are probably at their most challenging in that late 40 age bracket. They are having to manage their own understanding of who they are, as they move through the transition into middle age.
It can be a messy but glorious transition time that women experience in different ways. They need a lot of entertainment, lightness and laughter and love and information and inspiration, and they need it all in one place.
How to listen to Broad Radio
We are currently broadcasting out of a podcast studio in Melbourne. Because our technology is all cloud-based, you can broadcast from anywhere.
The Broad Radio app is purpose built letting you take the content wherever you go. Bluetooth the music to your speaker or your headphones or your car.
But it’s simply radio as we know it and love it. All the content that makes up radio – sweepers, intros, ads, talk, and lots of music.
What was your biggest investment?
This is the case for pretty much every startup, it’s the talent. We’ve been really fortunate. The team we’ve built is incredible off-air and on.
Darren McFarlane and Jo Stanley
Do you have many investors?
My husband Darren and I are directors. We did an equity crowdsource funding raise in March this year through Birchel. [The crowdfunding raised close to $400,000.] We have 290 investors who are incredibly engaged and passionate.
Prior to that, we have had some angel investors and they have been with us from the beginning.
We had crowdfunding to help us build the app to begin with, but that wasn’t for equity.
Are men welcome to tune in?
Of course.
[Darren McFarlane tells his story as a listener]
One thing that I found as the male listener were really funny stories, really smart conversations. By no means did I feel excluded from any of those conversations as a listener.
I was just like, this is great. This is fun. This is smart.
Everyone will really connect.
[Back to Jo Stanley]
Some of my favourite broadcasting in my career has been on Triple M, a predominantly a male audience. Women, of course, also listen to Triple M.
At Broad Radio there is definitely a space for all people
Tracee Hutchison
Broads playing broad music: Tracee Hutchison on the music.
“When Jo (Stanley) and I started building the music blocks for Broad Radio we both had a shared vision of creating a soundtrack that spoke to our name. I’ve always believed that there is a sweet spot between commercial radio and community radio – a station that will champion emerging artists and First Nations artists and program their music alongside established artists who might have a shared sensibility or sound.
“Broad Radio is where you’ll hear artists you know and artists we’d love you to know more about. Curating our music programming has been an absolute labour of love, and I feel very passionate and deeply invested in knowing there will be artists who will find new audiences through Broad Radio. Artists like Kee’Ahn programmed alongside Beyonce, the mighty Amyl & the Sniffers alongside Lady Gaga, GFlip next to P!nk, Eliza Hull sidling up to Kate Bush and Angie McMahon alongside Patti Smith. Our music stretches back to the 1960s with artists like Aretha Franklin and Nancy Sinatra and finds a place for our own trailblazers like Helen Reddy, Olivia, Kylie, Chrissy Amphlett and Aunty Ruby Hunter, alongside brand-new artists and new releases. There is so much great music and so many great artists that don’t get the airplay they should because they don’t fit a dominant sound, or an algorithm. I’ve kind of become a human algorithm, but programming with intention and a whole lot of joy!”
See also: Gold’s Jo Stanley and Anthony “Lehmo” Lehmann celebrate 300 shows