Latest news with #Jonesy&Amanda
The Age
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
‘Jana Wendt was my idol, but I was truly obsessed with Barry Manilow'
AK: Not quite. I had met her in passing, through her husband [Harley Oliver], who was working at Simon Townsend's Wonder World, when he came in as a producer years ago, at the very tail end of me working there. I remember being incredibly starstruck and shy, but she was lovely. And, after all, it wasn't as if she was Barry Manilow, who was the one I was truly obsessed with! Fitz: Barry Manilow? You must have been the most uncool teenager ever! And just quietly, I think you might have been up against it to gain his affections even on the best of days. AK: But that was part of it – because he was dorky and relatively unattractive. And I say that with great love for Barry. He was kind of … we felt he was gettable. We knew our level, and Barry was my level. You know, he lived in a New York apartment and I fantasised about sitting on a couch in front of the fire with him, having a hot chocolate. That's as far as my fantasies went. Fitz: OK, I'll sign for that. Shades of The Living Room TV show. But I digress. And you've of course since gone on to the most extraordinarily peripatetic media career, doing lots of TV shows, while having your Gold-FM breakfast radio gig Jonesy & Amanda as your solid base for at least a couple of decades. If you can park your humility for a moment, what is it you reckon you've got that has allowed you to prosper for so long on so many media platforms? AK: It is very out of my character to park the humility, but I think it's because I've just done the work. I've always felt that was the job, working hard and trying to make a good fist of it. Fitz: Given the phenomenal success of Jonesy & Amanda on Gold-FM – and its much more middle-of-the road nature, without ever being bland – does it seem strange to you that you and Brendan Jones weren't the ones syndicated to Melbourne, instead of Kyle & Jackie O? AK: No. That was their ambition, and never ours. I'm just happy turning up for work and looking out this window we have in our office in North Sydney, seeing the sun come up over the harbour city. We moved into this new building we're in now, straight after the terrible stabbings at Bondi Junction. Just felt like from our vantage point up there, I felt like I wanted to give our city a giant hug. Loading Fitz: Off the top of my head, I can only remember you being associated with one controversy – and even then it was just you making some narky comments – when Channel Ten suddenly pulled the Persian rug out from under you on The Living Room after a decade's success. You said, as I remember it, 'something, something, something, those mongrels, something, something'. AK: Yes, I don't remember the exact quote, either, but yes, of course I remember my feelings around it. And look, it really had gone for 10 years on television, which is 100 million years in human lives – so we'd had a great run – but I do know how rare that kind of chemistry is on television. And not a day goes by someone in the street doesn't say, 'Hey, what happened to The Living Room?' So I was just so surprised at the decision, and I'm still surprised at the decision. Fitz: And yet, in the patented Keller fashion, you bounced quickly into another gig, this one The Role of a Lifetime, which was all about parenting. I know you and Harley have raised two fine sons. But when you looked at all the experts on that show offering sage advice, did you and Harley come up to the mark or not? AK: It's interesting. A lot of the new parents were very intentional about the food their child eats, when it's going to have screen time, and all of that. We just did our best, and let the kids do things they wanted to do that weren't dangerous and hopefully praised and raised them in the right ways. And I think we've been really lucky with where we've ended up. Fitz: And given you and Harley were both in the media and both flat out, did you have guilt, as my wife and I did, that we're juggling a lot of balls here and we've got to make damn sure that none of the three balls that are children fall? Which is why I stopped breakfast radio myself, as she was doing breakfast TV. AK: Yes, and that is where Harley stepped up. I was doing breakfast radio, and Harley was the one who was doing freelance work, so he was the one therefore who said, 'I'll be the parent that takes them to school in the morning. I'll be the parent that will field the phone calls until you get home. I'll be the one at the bus stop.' With my friend Anita McGregor, who's a forensic psychologist, I do a podcast called Double A Chattery.... Fitz: [ Interrupting ] Of course you do a podcast! You probably also do a radio show for left-handed New Yorkers, in your spare time, while also trying to sort out peace in the Middle East. But go on. AK: [ Laughing ] And the podcast we did for Mother's Day that we recorded last week was with my two sons, and I told them how guilty I felt that I couldn't be there for the Mother's Day breakfasts, for the drop-offs, for the many things I couldn't do. I asked them, 'Did it matter to you?' And they are such lovely boys. They said, 'No, it didn't because you always said to us, 'If this really matters, tell me, and I will make a giant effort'.' They understood the nature of the family, how it must adapt to needs, and that's how we tried to do it. Fitz: Which brings us, after a run-up that would do D.K. Lillee proud, to The Piano, which starts on the ABC tonight. What was the pitch when it came to you? AK: This show is so not what the title says it is. It is just pure heart and music and beauty and tears. It's about people playing piano in public spaces, to enrich lives. And as soon as I saw one episode [of the British series], I said, 'OK, well, I'm going to have to find time in my diary for that'. Fitz: And so it began. AK: We selected five different locations around Australia, and people were chosen to come down and play. One woman was blind and deaf, and watching her was quite extraordinary. She had an interpreter who touched her hand as I was talking to her, an instant translator. And as she played, this person was standing at her back signalling to her what was happening. At one point the translator made what looked be like the pitter-patter of rain down her back, to tell her that people were applauding. It was just extraordinary. We had kids who had written songs in their bedrooms because they weren't sporty and were being bullied at school, and music was their saviour. We had older people whose partners had Alzheimer's, and music was the way the thing that still connected them. Everybody has a story, and the stories that poured out of these people, and the role that the music and the piano had played in their lives, was just wonderful. Loading Fitz: And you have a couple of pianists helping you? AK: Yes. What I probably should mention is that it's not a competition. But we have Andrea Lam, who's Australia's premier classical pianist, and Harry Connick Jr watching on, and they come out at the end and select the person who's touched them the most, or made them laugh or influence them the most. And at the end, we get all the best to put on a concert in a concert hall, and it is spectacular.
Sydney Morning Herald
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘Jana Wendt was my idol, but I was truly obsessed with Barry Manilow'
AK: Not quite. I had met her in passing, through her husband [Harley Oliver], who was working at Simon Townsend's Wonder World, when he came in as a producer years ago, at the very tail end of me working there. I remember being incredibly starstruck and shy, but she was lovely. And, after all, it wasn't as if she was Barry Manilow, who was the one I was truly obsessed with! Fitz: Barry Manilow? You must have been the most uncool teenager ever! And just quietly, I think you might have been up against it to gain his affections even on the best of days. AK: But that was part of it – because he was dorky and relatively unattractive. And I say that with great love for Barry. He was kind of … we felt he was gettable. We knew our level, and Barry was my level. You know, he lived in a New York apartment and I fantasised about sitting on a couch in front of the fire with him, having a hot chocolate. That's as far as my fantasies went. Fitz: OK, I'll sign for that. Shades of The Living Room TV show. But I digress. And you've of course since gone on to the most extraordinarily peripatetic media career, doing lots of TV shows, while having your Gold-FM breakfast radio gig Jonesy & Amanda as your solid base for at least a couple of decades. If you can park your humility for a moment, what is it you reckon you've got that has allowed you to prosper for so long on so many media platforms? AK: It is very out of my character to park the humility, but I think it's because I've just done the work. I've always felt that was the job, working hard and trying to make a good fist of it. Fitz: Given the phenomenal success of Jonesy & Amanda on Gold-FM – and its much more middle-of-the road nature, without ever being bland – does it seem strange to you that you and Brendan Jones weren't the ones syndicated to Melbourne, instead of Kyle & Jackie O? AK: No. That was their ambition, and never ours. I'm just happy turning up for work and looking out this window we have in our office in North Sydney, seeing the sun come up over the harbour city. We moved into this new building we're in now, straight after the terrible stabbings at Bondi Junction. Just felt like from our vantage point up there, I felt like I wanted to give our city a giant hug. Loading Fitz: Off the top of my head, I can only remember you being associated with one controversy – and even then it was just you making some narky comments – when Channel Ten suddenly pulled the Persian rug out from under you on The Living Room after a decade's success. You said, as I remember it, 'something, something, something, those mongrels, something, something'. AK: Yes, I don't remember the exact quote, either, but yes, of course I remember my feelings around it. And look, it really had gone for 10 years on television, which is 100 million years in human lives – so we'd had a great run – but I do know how rare that kind of chemistry is on television. And not a day goes by someone in the street doesn't say, 'Hey, what happened to The Living Room?' So I was just so surprised at the decision, and I'm still surprised at the decision. Fitz: And yet, in the patented Keller fashion, you bounced quickly into another gig, this one The Role of a Lifetime, which was all about parenting. I know you and Harley have raised two fine sons. But when you looked at all the experts on that show offering sage advice, did you and Harley come up to the mark or not? AK: It's interesting. A lot of the new parents were very intentional about the food their child eats, when it's going to have screen time, and all of that. We just did our best, and let the kids do things they wanted to do that weren't dangerous and hopefully praised and raised them in the right ways. And I think we've been really lucky with where we've ended up. Fitz: And given you and Harley were both in the media and both flat out, did you have guilt, as my wife and I did, that we're juggling a lot of balls here and we've got to make damn sure that none of the three balls that are children fall? Which is why I stopped breakfast radio myself, as she was doing breakfast TV. AK: Yes, and that is where Harley stepped up. I was doing breakfast radio, and Harley was the one who was doing freelance work, so he was the one therefore who said, 'I'll be the parent that takes them to school in the morning. I'll be the parent that will field the phone calls until you get home. I'll be the one at the bus stop.' With my friend Anita McGregor, who's a forensic psychologist, I do a podcast called Double A Chattery.... Fitz: [ Interrupting ] Of course you do a podcast! You probably also do a radio show for left-handed New Yorkers, in your spare time, while also trying to sort out peace in the Middle East. But go on. AK: [ Laughing ] And the podcast we did for Mother's Day that we recorded last week was with my two sons, and I told them how guilty I felt that I couldn't be there for the Mother's Day breakfasts, for the drop-offs, for the many things I couldn't do. I asked them, 'Did it matter to you?' And they are such lovely boys. They said, 'No, it didn't because you always said to us, 'If this really matters, tell me, and I will make a giant effort'.' They understood the nature of the family, how it must adapt to needs, and that's how we tried to do it. Fitz: Which brings us, after a run-up that would do D.K. Lillee proud, to The Piano, which starts on the ABC tonight. What was the pitch when it came to you? AK: This show is so not what the title says it is. It is just pure heart and music and beauty and tears. It's about people playing piano in public spaces, to enrich lives. And as soon as I saw one episode [of the British series], I said, 'OK, well, I'm going to have to find time in my diary for that'. Fitz: And so it began. AK: We selected five different locations around Australia, and people were chosen to come down and play. One woman was blind and deaf, and watching her was quite extraordinary. She had an interpreter who touched her hand as I was talking to her, an instant translator. And as she played, this person was standing at her back signalling to her what was happening. At one point the translator made what looked be like the pitter-patter of rain down her back, to tell her that people were applauding. It was just extraordinary. We had kids who had written songs in their bedrooms because they weren't sporty and were being bullied at school, and music was their saviour. We had older people whose partners had Alzheimer's, and music was the way the thing that still connected them. Everybody has a story, and the stories that poured out of these people, and the role that the music and the piano had played in their lives, was just wonderful. Loading Fitz: And you have a couple of pianists helping you? AK: Yes. What I probably should mention is that it's not a competition. But we have Andrea Lam, who's Australia's premier classical pianist, and Harry Connick Jr watching on, and they come out at the end and select the person who's touched them the most, or made them laugh or influence them the most. And at the end, we get all the best to put on a concert in a concert hall, and it is spectacular.
The Age
26-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
Amanda Keller: ‘The older I get, the happier I am'
This story is part of the April 27 edition of Sunday Life. See all 13 stories. At 63, Amanda Keller already has her hands full, waking at 4am each weekday to co-host the Sydney breakfast radio show Jonesy & Amanda. She wasn't looking for anything new, but then came the ABC TV series The Piano. 'I watched one episode of the English version and bawled my eyes out. I thought, 'Bugger, I'm going to have to say yes,'' she says, with a laugh. The Australian version of the heartfelt British series brings everyday Aussies to public spaces to play a piano. Keller hosts while musician Harry Connick Jr and concert pianist Andrea Lam observe, Big Brother -style, from another room. A constant on Australian TV and radio since the 1990s, Keller says age has brought a new clarity to the projects she chooses. In her 20s and 30s, she was charging ahead in her career. Now, she gravitates towards things that feel purposeful. But she never expected a show about public pianos to move her so deeply. 'The breadth of the people who came down to play for us – from young to old, from those who hadn't played for years to others who play every day – it's the emotion of the piano that took me by surprise. Every day I laughed, cried, held someone's hand and said, 'God, you're amazing.'' Keller began her media career in the 1983, working as a researcher on Simon Townsend's Wonder World before moving onto Midday with Ray Martin in 1985, then landing a breakout on-air role on the science and technology program Beyond 2000 in 1987. Her path to fame was far from orchestrated. Even her regular guest appearances on the chat show Denton in the mid-'90s felt more like a happy accident than a grand plan – she and host Andrew Denton had been friends at university. However, she is now reported to be the second-highest-paid female radio host in Australia after Jackie 'O' Henderson. 'Working behind the scenes as a researcher and segment producer, that's where I learnt how to put a story together and work in a team,' says Keller, who graduated from what is now Charles Sturt University with a degree in journalism in 1982. 'I learnt how the system worked without having to be in front of the camera, and that was my saving grace.' And she's still learning. Last year she discovered the word 'sonder', a term coined by John Koenig in his book The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows to describe the realisation that everyone around you is living a life as rich and complex as your own. 'When I'm on air, I'm with people on the best day of their lives and the worst day,' she says. 'We all save each other in the soup of humanity and I appreciate that more as I get older.' In 2017, Keller became the first woman inducted into the Australian Commercial Radio Hall of Fame. But the milestone coincided with heartbreak – her husband, Harley Oliver, was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease that year. The couple, parents to two sons now in their 20s, kept the news private until 2023. This road hasn't been easy for Keller and her family. 'I have learnt to appreciate the journey people are on, and I don't think this is something I could have understood or been able to do at 20 or 40,' she says. 'But now, in my 60s, I see the universality of what we're all going through. My husband Harley has always said, 'We all have an asteroid coming for us; some of us know what it is and some of us don't.'' For Keller, it's the small things that provide solace: a close-knit book club that meets every five weeks and weekend dog walks with her friend Anita, a forensic psychologist who 'goes to great pains to not be a psychologist to all her friends'. She laughs when she talks about retirement. 'I can't imagine that for myself,' she says. 'I like to wake up and know I have something to do and somewhere to be. It's good for me. I thought that by the time I got to this age I wouldn't want that any more, but it's been a nice revelation that I still like work, still need it and have enthusiasm for it.' With those 4am alarms, she's strict about self-care. Nothing happens after midday – no coffee catch-ups, no dentist appointments, no haircuts. 'I take my afternoon sleep very seriously,' she says. 'I factor in time for myself in ways I might not have before, and my self-care ritual isn't bottom of my list any more.' Keller was born and raised in Sydney in a loving but 'not particularly artsy' family. As a girl, she once told her mother she wanted to be an actor and was mortified when her mum repeated it to the lady next door. 'It felt like such a show-off thing to say,' she recalls. Teenage Amanda poured her feelings into dramatic diary entries and a love of Barry Manilow, but rarely shared her emotions. These days, she occasionally dips into her archives to better understand what she was like growing up. 'I can see how I completely internalised the way I felt about anything dramatic,' she says. 'I never showed it or talked about it. We were so boringly modest as a family, and I think I still am.' For Keller, it was seeing Australian journalist Jana Wendt on 60 Minutes and A Current Affair that planted the seed that a life in the media might be worth pursuing. 'I thought about how amazing it would be to have such a glamorous job,' she says. 'Jana was smart and held her own – I really liked that. But once I got the job in media, I realised it's not as glamorous as I'd thought.' Keller made up for that shortfall in glamour in other ways. A 10-year stint on Network 10's The Living Room, for instance, remains a favourite period of her career. 'Barry Du Bois is in the middle of renovating the front of my house as we speak,' she says of one co-host before turning to the others. 'Chris [Brown] is always amazing, and we talk all the time, and it's often Miguel [Maestre] who is off somewhere and makes catching up a bit harder. 'I made some of my closest life friends on that show. The genuine chemistry we shared and continue to share is rare.' When nominated for Gold Logies in 2018 and 2019, the diary-like panic of her youth reared its head again. 'That's why I found it so hard to sell myself for the Gold Logies,' she admits. 'It's not an easy position to put yourself in, and I much prefer doing the work than talking about the work I've done.' Keller's mum, who died over two decades ago while Amanda was raising her sons, is still present in her thoughts – especially now. 'I miss Mum every day and realise this more as I get older,' she says. 'As a parent I now realise so clearly that love is a doing word. I wish I could say to Mum, 'I really get it now.''. Loading Filming The Piano brought her mother – who had played piano as a young woman, but gave it up when she started a family – even closer. 'Mum always felt she missed out on a career,' says Keller. 'She was the eldest in her family and left to go and work in a bank. That's where she met Dad and then married. 'Back then, the rules were different. You had to leave your job when you got married. And to think that my mum's sister, who was 10 years younger than Mum, got two degrees and travelled to Afghanistan. All that change happened in one generation – it's quite extraordinary. I always felt a bit sad that my mother missed out.' Keller's memoir, Natural Born Keller, was published over a decade ago. Surely there will be further acts in her career. 'When I look at shows like Fisk and Utopia, I think it would be good to do an acting gig here or there,' she says. 'But if that doesn't happen, I am OK with it, too. 'The older I get, the happier I am with my lot. If you can choose your dismount in this industry, that's a lucky thing because in media you never know when that time will be. But I don't have any firm ambitions and I don't look at anything in life with jealousy or burning desire either.' The Piano airs on ABC TV from May 4.
Sydney Morning Herald
26-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Amanda Keller: ‘The older I get, the happier I am'
This story is part of the April 27 edition of Sunday Life. See all 13 stories. At 63, Amanda Keller already has her hands full, waking at 4am each weekday to co-host the Sydney breakfast radio show Jonesy & Amanda. She wasn't looking for anything new, but then came the ABC TV series The Piano. 'I watched one episode of the English version and bawled my eyes out. I thought, 'Bugger, I'm going to have to say yes,'' she says, with a laugh. The Australian version of the heartfelt British series brings everyday Aussies to public spaces to play a piano. Keller hosts while musician Harry Connick Jr and concert pianist Andrea Lam observe, Big Brother -style, from another room. A constant on Australian TV and radio since the 1990s, Keller says age has brought a new clarity to the projects she chooses. In her 20s and 30s, she was charging ahead in her career. Now, she gravitates towards things that feel purposeful. But she never expected a show about public pianos to move her so deeply. 'The breadth of the people who came down to play for us – from young to old, from those who hadn't played for years to others who play every day – it's the emotion of the piano that took me by surprise. Every day I laughed, cried, held someone's hand and said, 'God, you're amazing.'' Keller began her media career in the 1983, working as a researcher on Simon Townsend's Wonder World before moving onto Midday with Ray Martin in 1985, then landing a breakout on-air role on the science and technology program Beyond 2000 in 1987. Her path to fame was far from orchestrated. Even her regular guest appearances on the chat show Denton in the mid-'90s felt more like a happy accident than a grand plan – she and host Andrew Denton had been friends at university. However, she is now reported to be the second-highest-paid female radio host in Australia after Jackie 'O' Henderson. 'Working behind the scenes as a researcher and segment producer, that's where I learnt how to put a story together and work in a team,' says Keller, who graduated from what is now Charles Sturt University with a degree in journalism in 1982. 'I learnt how the system worked without having to be in front of the camera, and that was my saving grace.' And she's still learning. Last year she discovered the word 'sonder', a term coined by John Koenig in his book The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows to describe the realisation that everyone around you is living a life as rich and complex as your own. 'When I'm on air, I'm with people on the best day of their lives and the worst day,' she says. 'We all save each other in the soup of humanity and I appreciate that more as I get older.' In 2017, Keller became the first woman inducted into the Australian Commercial Radio Hall of Fame. But the milestone coincided with heartbreak – her husband, Harley Oliver, was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease that year. The couple, parents to two sons now in their 20s, kept the news private until 2023. This road hasn't been easy for Keller and her family. 'I have learnt to appreciate the journey people are on, and I don't think this is something I could have understood or been able to do at 20 or 40,' she says. 'But now, in my 60s, I see the universality of what we're all going through. My husband Harley has always said, 'We all have an asteroid coming for us; some of us know what it is and some of us don't.'' For Keller, it's the small things that provide solace: a close-knit book club that meets every five weeks and weekend dog walks with her friend Anita, a forensic psychologist who 'goes to great pains to not be a psychologist to all her friends'. She laughs when she talks about retirement. 'I can't imagine that for myself,' she says. 'I like to wake up and know I have something to do and somewhere to be. It's good for me. I thought that by the time I got to this age I wouldn't want that any more, but it's been a nice revelation that I still like work, still need it and have enthusiasm for it.' With those 4am alarms, she's strict about self-care. Nothing happens after midday – no coffee catch-ups, no dentist appointments, no haircuts. 'I take my afternoon sleep very seriously,' she says. 'I factor in time for myself in ways I might not have before, and my self-care ritual isn't bottom of my list any more.' Keller was born and raised in Sydney in a loving but 'not particularly artsy' family. As a girl, she once told her mother she wanted to be an actor and was mortified when her mum repeated it to the lady next door. 'It felt like such a show-off thing to say,' she recalls. Teenage Amanda poured her feelings into dramatic diary entries and a love of Barry Manilow, but rarely shared her emotions. These days, she occasionally dips into her archives to better understand what she was like growing up. 'I can see how I completely internalised the way I felt about anything dramatic,' she says. 'I never showed it or talked about it. We were so boringly modest as a family, and I think I still am.' For Keller, it was seeing Australian journalist Jana Wendt on 60 Minutes and A Current Affair that planted the seed that a life in the media might be worth pursuing. 'I thought about how amazing it would be to have such a glamorous job,' she says. 'Jana was smart and held her own – I really liked that. But once I got the job in media, I realised it's not as glamorous as I'd thought.' Keller made up for that shortfall in glamour in other ways. A 10-year stint on Network 10's The Living Room, for instance, remains a favourite period of her career. 'Barry Du Bois is in the middle of renovating the front of my house as we speak,' she says of one co-host before turning to the others. 'Chris [Brown] is always amazing, and we talk all the time, and it's often Miguel [Maestre] who is off somewhere and makes catching up a bit harder. 'I made some of my closest life friends on that show. The genuine chemistry we shared and continue to share is rare.' When nominated for Gold Logies in 2018 and 2019, the diary-like panic of her youth reared its head again. 'That's why I found it so hard to sell myself for the Gold Logies,' she admits. 'It's not an easy position to put yourself in, and I much prefer doing the work than talking about the work I've done.' Keller's mum, who died over two decades ago while Amanda was raising her sons, is still present in her thoughts – especially now. 'I miss Mum every day and realise this more as I get older,' she says. 'As a parent I now realise so clearly that love is a doing word. I wish I could say to Mum, 'I really get it now.''. Loading Filming The Piano brought her mother – who had played piano as a young woman, but gave it up when she started a family – even closer. 'Mum always felt she missed out on a career,' says Keller. 'She was the eldest in her family and left to go and work in a bank. That's where she met Dad and then married. 'Back then, the rules were different. You had to leave your job when you got married. And to think that my mum's sister, who was 10 years younger than Mum, got two degrees and travelled to Afghanistan. All that change happened in one generation – it's quite extraordinary. I always felt a bit sad that my mother missed out.' Keller's memoir, Natural Born Keller, was published over a decade ago. Surely there will be further acts in her career. 'When I look at shows like Fisk and Utopia, I think it would be good to do an acting gig here or there,' she says. 'But if that doesn't happen, I am OK with it, too. 'The older I get, the happier I am with my lot. If you can choose your dismount in this industry, that's a lucky thing because in media you never know when that time will be. But I don't have any firm ambitions and I don't look at anything in life with jealousy or burning desire either.' The Piano airs on ABC TV from May 4.
The Age
24-04-2025
- The Age
Thy has been on the radio for six months. Turns out she isn't real
A Sydney radio station has been using an AI-generated host for about six months without disclosing it – and was not legally obliged to. It was revealed last week that Australian Radio Network's (ARN) Sydney-based CADA station, which broadcasts across western Sydney and is available online and through the iHeartRadio app, had crated and deployed an AI host for its Workdays with Thy slot. The artificial host known as 'Thy' is on-air at 11am each weekday to present four hours of hip-hop, but at no point during the show, nor anywhere on the ARN website, is the use of AI disclosed. Instead, the show's webpage simply says 'while you are at work, driving around, doing the commute on public transport or at uni, Thy will be playing you the hottest tracks from around the world'. ARN Media also owns KIIS FM, the home of The Kyle & Jackie O Show, and the GOLD network, home to high-rating Sydney breakfast show Jonesy & Amanda. After initial questioning from Stephanie Coombes in The Carpet newsletter, it was revealed that the station used ElevenLabs – a generative AI audio platform that transforms text into speech – to create Thy, whose likeness and voice were cloned from a real employee in the ARN finance team. The Australian Communications and Media Authority said there were currently no specific restrictions on the use of AI in broadcast content, and no obligation to disclose its use. An ARN spokesperson said the company is exploring how new technology can enhance the listener experience.
