SCA: is it news?

The last 12 months have been a period of great change for Southern Cross Austereo as its tried to arrest a decline in ratings and revenue across the network.

Apart from the structural changes at board level and an extensive programing shake-up, there have also been controversial changes within news.

Journalists on the HIT side of the operation in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane where made redundant, with Emma Freedman appointed to provide a national news read through drive with Hamish and Andy.

That’s proven to be a short lived thing, with Emma returning to a presenting role with the network. As revealed by RadioToday (see here), Emma is teaming up with Angus O’Loughlin to co-host the new The #Hit30 show.

SCA has yet to announce who will present Hit news in drive or if it will return to individual bulletins for each city.

The departure of Sydney news director Deborah Clay was announced with little fanfare. She’s moved on to a national role with rival ARN.  SCA has yet to formally announce who will read breakfast news on 2MMM or if it intends to replace Clay as News Director.

Adelaide’s news director Monique Crichton was also made redundant before Christmas after 19 years with the network.  The news director’s role has not been filled.

In Melbourne, there has also been change that has been kept on the down-low.  With Fifi and Dave’s return from the summer break on FoxFM, there has been one notable absence:  Honor Elliot.

Honor joined the show 12 months ago, taking over from Krystal Keller, who left the network to join ARN’s rebranded Melbourne station Kiis101.

Elliot has neither been sacked nor made redundant. She’s simply not there.   It turns out, she resigned at the end of last year to join her partner in country NSW.

As yet, there’s been no word of a potential replacement as breakfast presenter on Foxfm.  Will they choose someone from within the team, look to poach from another network or look to see who might apply?

Watch this space.