It all started with a simple prediction.
Earlier this year, radio expert Craig Bruce announced on his Game Changers podcast and later told Mediaweek he believed 2025 would be the last year audiences would hear Jonesy and Amanda (Brendan Jones and Amanda Keller) on the Australian Radio Network (ARN).
The pair currently host their breakfast show on GOLD101.7, but according to industry rumours revealed by Bruce in both his podcast and this publication will be off contract at the end of the year*.
“So, if I was at Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) I would be looking at Jonesy and Amanda and thinking, wow, that could fix a 10 year problem they’ve had at 2DayFM breakfast,” Bruce said.
The problem Bruce is referring to is the merry-go-round of breakfast shows SCA has experimented with over the past few years. To date, they’ve had seven different breakfast show variations since 2013.
For Bruce, landing the pair would be a monumental coup for SCA: “When I spoke to them recently for the podcast, they sounded as connected and as committed as ever. Their ratings are also as strong as they’ve ever been”.
Now, the SCA CEO John Kelly has added fuel to the fire, urging the pair to jump ship.
SCA’s John Kelly
In an interview with Mediaweek, Kelly was quick to make the hard sell to the seasoned broadcasters: “They should be on our network”.
But instead of 2DayFM, Kelly believes the pair “should be at Triple M”.
“We’d love to have them,” he added.
While Kelly didn’t specify what time slot, if the pair did complete a like-for-like swap, they would end up replacing the station’s current show Triple M Breakfast with Beau, Tarsh and Woodsy. The show only debuted this year and it’s success is still anyone’s guess, with the first ratings period for 2025 set to be released later this month.
Triple M Breakfast with Beau, Tarsh and Woodsy
Heading home?
Jones joined WSFM from Triple M in 2003, despite having a strong negative opinion about it. In a previous interview with Mediaweek, Jones remembered the ARN-owned station as a “horrible hillbilly place”.
2WS wasn’t doing well and its breakfast was bombing. Jones had been contracted for three years in that time slot. He hated the first year at 2WS so much that he wanted to quit radio.
“I never wanted to leave radio until that time, Jones said. “The 2003-2004 year, before Amanda came on, was my hardest time ever in radio.”
Jones’s breakfast co-host was leaving in 2004 and the management was looking at building its breakfast audience. Jones had one piece of advice for them: “Hire Keller and pay her what she wants. If we get her, we will go #1 next year, and if we don’t then I will leave.”
Jones had wanted to work with Keller since her days at Triple M. She was on the breakfast shift with Andrew Denton and Jones had filled in for Denton for about a week.
The show went #1 for the first time in 2005, as Jones predicted to the station’s management at the time.
Thirteen years later, the show remains a hit with the listeners. Jonesy and Amanda became #1 FM breakfast in the latest radio ratings, dethroning longtime holders of the title, KIIS 106.5’s Kyle and Jackie O.
*Mediaweek has reached out to ARN for comment but none was received by time of publication.