Nova all Nova Australia- well maybe!

26April2004

With the purchase of a new FM radio station in Brisbane last week, DMG now owns a Nova in every major market. It has triggered speculation that DMG might be planning to turn the stations into a national network with one programming stream.

According to the theory, Merrick and Rosso's Sydney-based show would be broadcast nationally in the breakfast slot and Melbourne's breakfast team, with Dave Hughes, Kate Langbroek and Dave O'Neil, would present a national drivetime show.

The rumours have been fuelled by DMG's decision a few weeks ago to pipe Merrick and Rosso's show into Adelaide on its newly acquired station, Nova 919, before an official launch later in the year.

At the time, Nova's head of marketing, Sam Thompson, said it was "better to have Merrick and Rosso than three hours of silence", but others think there may be a deeper motive. Merrick and Rosso have a national following from their Triple J days, comedy tours and more recent Channel Nine exposure.

DMG has spent nearly $500 million on metropolitan radio stations during the past four years. Shared programming between states is one logical solution to help recoup costs more quickly. Rival network Austereo has gone down a similar path with Triple M, and DMG already heavily networks its 55 regional stations.

The only stumbling block to the theory is that Dean Buchanan, head of programming at DMG, says it is totally untrue. "Nova is a name, not a format," he says. "It's not a cookie cutter that goes across the land. Each Nova station has been developed for its individual market and that's one of the key reasons it has done so well in such a short amount of time."