After more than two decades on Sydney breakfast radio, Brendan ‘Jonesy’ Jones and Amanda Keller are expected to shift to the drive slot as part of Australian Radio Network’s (ARN) broader ongoing rebrand of WSFM to Gold, which began at the beginning of 2025.
While ARN has yet to confirm the move publicly, industry speculation has been circulating for more than a year, with recent developments reinforcing the likelihood of a time slot change.
New network structure supports the shift
The rebrand of WSFM to align with Gold104.3 in Melbourne has been in planning for some time.
According to an industry source, the current networking configuration that rolled out earlier this year was built around the expectation that Jonesy and Amanda would move to drive, and that Christian O’Connell would take over the Sydney breakfast shift via a national network feed.
“At Gold, the station’s structure was specifically built around the expectation that Jonesy and Amanda would shift to drive,” the source told Mediaweek.
“Currently, all the shows besides breakfast on the station are networked out of Melbourne, with the sole exception being the drive show, which still comes out of Sydney, a setup designed to allow a seamless transition whenever the shift happened.”
Jonesy and Amanda with ARN CEO Ciaran Davis
‘It sounds like it’s happening’
Radio commentator and Game Changers podcast host Craig Bruce, who first floated the possibility of Jonesy and Amanda shifting off breakfast earlier this year via a move to rivals Southern Cross Austereo (SCA), believes the move has been in motion for a while.
“It sounds like it’s happening and has been in play for a period of time,” he told Mediaweek.
While he acknowledges the risk of replacing a 20-year breakfast fixture: “that’s a 20-year habit that listeners in Sydney to Gold have built up”, Bruce is confident the transition can be managed. “Christian is brilliant,” he said, adding that while there may be some turmoil as listeners adjust, “I don’t think that will be a massive issue for ARN.”
That said, according to Mediaweek’s source, Bruce’s original suggestion of the pair moving to SCA wasn’t far off from the truth.
“Ultimately it came down to contract negotiations and whether the pair would agree to stay. They did explore options with Triple M, but the numbers didn’t stack up. In the end, staying with ARN made more sense,” they said.
Meanwhile, Bruce believes O’Connell is well placed to meet the expectations of loyal listeners: “I don’t think there’s any other breakfast show in the market that can really deliver specifically what an Amanda and Jonesy fan would be after. I think Christian will do a really good job of that from day one.?
As for where displaced listeners might go, Bruce doesn’t see an obvious alternative. “Could they go to Triple M? Possibly. I think that show at the moment is probably a little too young and not quite right for a Jonesy and Amanda fan,” he said.
“And really, the rest are pop formats. Maybe they might say, ‘OK, I’ll go and get some more music on Smooth, or I might go and get some more talk with Ben [Fordham, who hosts Breakfast on 2GB]”.
Still, Bruce sees any fallout as manageable. “Heritage breakfast show is massive kind of habitual listening that has been built up over a long period of time,” he said. “But if anyone can come into a market and really embrace it, we’ve seen what Christian has been able to do in Melbourne, and I’m sure that will happen in Sydney.”
Gold FM’s Christian O’Connell
Ratings momentum and contract talks
ARN’s recent ratings success appears to support the network’s confidence in a nationalised Gold strategy.
Melbourne’s Gold104.3 took out the top spot in the latest GfK survey with a 12.1% share, up from 11.6% last book. That result pushed longtime leader 3AW down to 11.9% and marked its second consecutive dip.
ARN Chief Operating Officer Lauren Joyce recently addressed speculation that Jonesy and Amanda could be leaving their Breakfast slot, confirming to Mediaweek that negotiations with the pair are ongoing.
“We’re still very much committed to Jonesy and Amanda,” Joyce said. “Our belief in them hasn’t wavered.”
As ARN moves closer to unveiling its full rebrand and network strategy, an official announcement is expected later this year, possibly at a planned Q4 upfronts presentation.