What's New
BY Sarah Patterson June 27, 2026
What's New October 24, 2025
KIX rebrands to iHeartCountry Australia
Reporter
KIX Country has been rebranded to iHeartCountry Australia, a move which ARN says will create one unified country music network across metro and regional Australia, establishing a single, national destination for country fans on-air, online, through live events and via the iHeart app.
The rebrand sees iHeartCountry Australia launch with a refreshed national schedule, new shows and an expanded music library – blending the best of Nashville’s global hits with homegrown Aussie country.
Lauren Joyce, ARN’s Chief Audience & Content Officer, said “Country music is the fastest-growing genre in the world, and Australia is one of the largest country markets. This is an exciting time to create a single, national network, under the iconic iHeartCountry brand, bringing the best of country music to Australian listeners. It’s a turnkey solution for our clients to connect their brands with the passionate country fans, while offering Aussie artists the biggest platform in the country to hear their music.”
Highlights include:
- Artist of the Week – The main stage of iHeartCountry where a favourite artist takes over the station for an hour 3pm daily for an entire week
- Countrified – Country artists covering non-country hits.
- Aussie Hour – Celebrating the best in Australian country, 8am Sundays
- KIX Live @ 5 – A double shot of live country music every weekday at 5pm.
- iHeartCountry Countdown – The hottest 30 country tracks 9am Friday morning and again Sundays at 4pm.
- iHeartCountry Party – Wall-to-wall, foot-stomping country bangers – Friday & Saturday nights, commercial-free.
- Morning Music Muster – No talk, no fuss, just great country music to start the workday.
- More Aussie Music – An even stronger focus on new Australian country artists and emerging talent.
iHeartCountry Australia is now live. Listeners can tune in via FM, DAB+, and iHeart to stream live.
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What's New
BY Sarah Patterson June 26, 2026
… so now we have a commercial radio network and narrowcast radio network combining to run not just the same format, but the same branded product across both commercial and narrowcast transmitters which, according to the ACMA, is liable for a $360,000 fine …
@CJ: I don’t see how this is much (if any) different to what Capital Radio and SEN are already doing. Last I checked, those networks also run stations which are used as analogue narrowcasters and commercial DAB+ services!
We’ve also got Vision Christian Radio (presumably using either commercial or community radio bandwidth) on DAB+ in at least the three main capital cities, which is a narrowcast service in plenty of other places.
All that aside, I think it was probably a matter of when rather than if ARN rebranded (or merged) KIX Country as iHeartCountry Australia.
I hearts destroying radio you go on the iHeart app to listen to other shows when really you should be listening to your local radio station yet the local radio stations promotes iHeart to go on there and go somewhere else ?
CJ, if you don’t like ARN blurring the lines of narrowcast and commercial or Capital and SEN or Sky doing same, then report to ACMA.
ACMA seem to take seriously the minnows of narrowcasting doing commercial formats not in a market so responsibility needs to be held on them or the upward referral to the ART, ombudsman and NACC.
this was always the end goal from the very first meeting with grants… suprised it took this long to be honest