The makeover continues at Nine Entertainment’s Macquarie Radio business.
The latest departure is Mark Noakes, the ad industry veteran who is the network’s head of commercial. After what could only be described as an annus horribilis for 2GB, he follows a number of colleagues out the door.
In a not to staff about the departure, Nine Entertainment’s new head of radio Tom Malone said: “As a result of aligning the Macquarie sales structure more closely with the Nine sales structure we will continue to focus on maximising our revenue from the direct market whilst developing our agency sales and digital capability.
“As a result, the role of head of commercial has been made redundant.”
Noakes leaves after joining the business way back in 2002, around the time both Alan Jones and Ray Hadley made the switch from 2UE to 2GB.
Malone said: “Mark has made a significant contribution to the business over many years at 2GB and then in the wider radio network as we came together as one business across 2GB/3AW/4BC/6PR.”
Noakes and his team faced some incredible challenges over the years and they did as much as the star announcers to keep the stations on air. Finding money from advertisers is never easy and was perhaps near impossible at least during a couple of the bigger ad “boycotts” over the last decade. One was the “died of shame” controversy after comments made about Julia Gillard, the other of course was this year after the Jacinda Ardern controversy.
Nine Entertainment is expected to announce a new radio sales structure shortly.