Game changer Ciaran Davis departs ARN; what to expect from TV stalwart Stepho

Oct 02, 2025

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Davis departs ARN with more wins than losses

That was among the biggest 48 hours Australia’s commercial radio industry has seen. On Tuesday, Southern Cross Austereo said it was merging with Seven West Media, signalling the retirement from the front line of Kerry Stokes; on Wednesday The Kyle & Jackie O Show clocked up a record number of decency breaches of the radio industry code of practice; and today we learned that Ciaran Davis will step down as ARN Media boss, to be replaced by Michael Stephenson.

Before I come to Stephenson, let’s start with Ciaran Davis.

I love the drama of media, so Davis was my kind of CEO. He was always willing to take game-changing risks. Too many executives are risk averse, unwilling to do anything that might undermine their own position.

Davis did it differently. Back when ARN Media was still APN News & Media, and Davis was running the Australian Radio Network side of the business, he masterminded the biggest game changer the radio industry had seen in a generation. ARN hired Kyle Sandilands and Jackie Henderson away from SCA’s 2DayFM and used them to spearhead the launch of the Kiis network, closing the ailing Vega. It was the boldest move since John Singleton hired Alan Jones into 2GB in 2002, and tilted the momentum away from SCA and towards ARN.

In 2018, Davis made a similarly big move in hiring Christian O’Connell out of the UK into what industry wisdom said was the parochial market of Melbourne. It worked brilliantly.

Then came two more big swings.

ARN teamed up with Anchorage Capital Partners to buy SCA and strip it down for parts. Strategically, it was a good plan for ARN that would have seen SCA’s Listnr become the digital hub of both companies’ radio assets, creating a single audio powerhouse. ARN would have got the best of the remaining networks, with Kiss and Triple M becoming five-city networks, while Gold and the Hit Network would have been left in a weakened second player. But even after SCA’s board reluctantly opened the door, Anchorage got cold feet and pulled out, killing the deal.

And Davis made another big and expensive move - extending the contracts for Sandilands and Henderson for a further decade and O’Connell by a further five. This plan was backed with a move towards national networking of the shows, a new strategy for commercial breakfast where live and local is the normal approach.

The first stage of that was The Kyle & Jackie O Show extending from Sydney and into Melbourne.

This was where good strategy met poor execution. In what could have been a foreseeable move, the sacked Kiis Melbourne team of Jason Hawkins and Lauren Phillips crossed over to Nova and took some of their audience with them, while Kiis ran dead in the timeslot before the networking began. Sandilands and Henderson made no concessions for the sensibilities of new Melbourne listeners, while their X-rated content which had previously gone through to the keeper got new attention, particularly once campaign group MFW got going. The show rated badly and eventually the Australian Communications & Media Authority creaked into action.

Which brings us onto Stephenson, or Stepho, as he’s pretty much universally known.

That will be the first time bomb Stephenson will need to defuse. It’s possible that the ACMA will finally, finally attach a licence condition making further breaches of the decency clause of the radio code of practice punishable. In the stupid regulatory framework (made worse by a slow moving ACMA) there are no middle-of-the road punishments.

If that happens, the next breach of the decency clause - which is the one the show keeps breaking - could actually see a licence suspended. Until ACMA actually makes up its mind about whether to impose the condition, Sandilands and Henderson may as well make the most of the next few weeks. They might be the last where they can broadcast without consequence.

Not that Stephenson can do much about that. With Sandilands and Henderson on long term contracts, the cake is in the oven. Assuming the duo are unable or unwilling to tone things down further, then the network needs to find another way to prevent their worst excesses from getting to air.

At the moment, the censor has become part of the show, and at times (to my ears) bullied by Sandilands when she’s put on air. She should be taken out of the environment to make independent calls on when to hit the dump button.

But that complication is ahead.

One noticeable thing with Davis’s departure is how the top tier of ARN will be bereft of actual radio experience at the top.

Chair Hamish McLennan came up through the advertising world, with diversions into TV (briefly running Network Ten) and real estate media (as chair of REA Group).

Stepho was a TV guy through and through - the last true believer in the power of broadcast television. It’s possible that he was hired with a view that ARN could combine with Seven West Media. That option vanished from the table on Tuesday.

Amongst Stepho’s first hires when he joined ARN as chief operating officer at the start of the year was another TV guy, his former Nine colleague Richard Hunwick, who had more than 20 years in television and joined as chief sales officer.

Joyce is in charge of ARN’s content despite not having worked in radio

Similarly, the person directly responsible for the content is chief audience and content officer Lauren Joyce, who came up through the agency world before three years at Mamamia. She joined ARN six years ago in a strategy role and only took responsibility for content at the start of this year when chief content officer Duncan Campbell departed.

ARN desperately needs somebody in the management team with domain expertise in radio. I still wonder whether ARN will use its Upfronts at the end of the month to announce SCA’s former chief content officer Dave Cameron as a like-for-like replacement.

So how will Stepho go? Despite his lack of hands-on radio experience, he has a lot going for him. He’s charming and well liked by the media agency world. He’s a convincing sales person and good on stage.

Unmade called it at the start of the year

He also works hard, and it was well known in the industry that he wanted to be a media CEO - many people in the industry are pleased for him today. In a parallel universe it might have been at Nine.

There are plenty of transferable skills he’ll be able to bring to ARN. Under Stepho, Nine’s data offering was thoroughly modernised, and he drove much of Nine’s work in using AI to make it easier for smaller customers to buy from the company. He also understands the importance of projecting confidence at events like Upfronts.

That will be his first public test. He has 27 days to get ready.

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Nine’s Unmade Index run continues

Nine’s market capitalisation improved for a fourth day in a row on Thursday with the share price rising another 1.2%.

Meanwhile Seven West Media stocks fell by 3.3%, taking the stock to only just above where it was when it announced its plan to merge with Southern Cross Austereo on Tuesday.

The market barely reacted to the announcement that Ciaran Davis will step down as CEO of ARN Media, with shares growing by 0.9%.