SCA’s Craig Bruce talks on the SAFM Changes

As we reported earlier, Ryan “Burgo” Burgess was removed from the SAFM breakfast show this afternoon. It was posted on SAFM's facebook page.

Craig Bruce, SCA’S Head of Content joined me for a chat on the changes.

Blair Sullivan:  Last time we caught up you mentioned the business is driven by winning or losing numbers – when did you draw a line in the sand?

Craig Bruce: “Over the last couple of weeks we had a think about it,  and look, Burgo’s role on the show is  that of a traditional anchor and most of the content, 90% of the content has been through Michael and Haley.

"Burgo’s probably played a slightly better than active role – there are different types of anchors as you know around the country, and he has been in the content a little more than your standard anchor, but not by a lot.”

“We felt as though there was an opportunity for us to focus more on Michael and Hayley and to clean out the sound of the show. “

“The research we have on Michael and Hayley is very strong, despite what the GFK number looks like – there’s a lot of good positive commentary around them, broadly from the market and we thought that was the best approach to simplify the show and focus more on them”

Blair: Are you looking at putting in another host to kind of push the buttons and let those two guys (Michael and Hayley) be the stars?

Craig Bruce:  “Yeah that’s essentially it Blair – it will be. We will have someone to top and tail the breaks but they won’t play a significant role in either the branding of the show or the content of the show.

Whoever goes into that role will certainly have a role to play in both On and Off the Air in terms of decision making and those sorts of things.  But from an On-air perspective the focus will be on Michael and Hayley.”

Blair:  So I guess you will let the guys settle in for a bit, are you then going to look at doing a bit of a marketing push?

Craig Bruce: “Yeah, we will. At the moment, with the new Triple M breakfast show Roo and Ditts just starting in the last 3 or 4 weeks we are going to focus on 5MMM obviously with the change of format there. That’s certainly our focus from an above the line perspective in Adelaide for the next period of time. But we will get out and be on the front foot sometime between now and the end of the year and promote the changes.”