After more than two decades on Sydney breakfast radio, Brendan ‘Jonesy’ Jones and Amanda Keller have confirmed they are moving to the drive slot.
The change is understood to be part of Australian Radio Network’s (ARN) broader ongoing rebrand of WSFM to Gold 101.7, which began at the beginning of 2025.
‘We’re excited’
The duo made the announcement to listeners on their show this morning, with Keller beginning by saying to Jonesy, “You and I have some big news.”
She continued: “We have re-signed here at Gold. Re-signed. But there are going to be some changes. Brendan and I are going to go to the drive shift.”
Jones then added that the pair “wouldn’t have otherwise mentioned this, but there’s a podcast that’s going to come out on Saturday about it” referring to the popular industry podcast Game Changers and reports in other media, including Mediaweek.
Jonesy and Amanda
Keller then chimed in saying the pair thought “they should own the news” about the move.
“We could have stayed doing breakfast for years. We’ve never fought the hours we we’ve spent 20 years with you guys, and this is the thing, we’re going to drag you kicking and screaming with us to drive,” she added.
As for who will now take over the coveted Breakfast slot? While not yet confirmed, only one name makes sense: Christian O’Connell.
If Sydney is to wake up with the Melbourne-based O’Connell in 2026 it would mean that ARN will be taking another gamble at rolling out a networked breakfast show across two cities.
As it currently stands, their original gamble with KISS FM’s The Kyle and Jackie O Show hasn’t delivered the expected results.
But that’s a deep dive for another time.
The changing face of Sydney
The rebrand of WSFM to align with Gold104.3 in Melbourne had been planned 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 O’Connell would take over the Sydney breakfast shift via a national network feed.
Gold 104.3’s Christian O’Connell.
“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 of the drive show, which still comes out of Sydney, a set-up designed to allow a seamless transition whenever the shift happened.”
Meanwhile, 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.