History
O'Connell's started The Christian O'Connell Breakfast Show in 1998, broadcast to the local Bournemouth, England market on station 2CR FM. In January 2000, the show moved to the larger, but still local, Liverpool market, on station Juice FM. O'Connell moved to London in January 2001, where the show was broadcast on XFM London. In January 2006, the show went national in the United Kingdom, broadcasting on Virgin Radio UK. In September 2008, the broadcast moved to Virgin Radio's successor station, Absolute Radio.
In February 2018, O'Connell announced he would be leaving Absolute Radio and emigrating to Australia to host the breakfast show on Gold 104.3 in Melbourne. The final UK show was broadcast on 18 May 2018. [2] The last song played on the show was "Nothing Lasts Forever" by Echo & the Bunnymen.
Christian started his new show on Melbourne's Gold 104.3 on Monday 4 June 2018. [3] The first song played on air was "It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll)" by AC/DC.
In October 2019, ARN announced that the show will remain on Gold 104.3 until 2022. [4]
In April 2020, ARN announced that The Christian O'Connell Show will be syndicated across the country from Monday 27 April, airing for one hour from 7 pm until 8 pm on weeknights on Gold 104.3 in Melbourne, WSFM in Sydney, 97.3 FM in Brisbane, Mix 102.3 in Adelaide and 96FM in Perth. [5] The show is highlights from the breakfast show which airs on Gold 104.3.
in February 2022, ARN announced that The Christian O'Connell Show will be further syndicated across country Victoria and New South Wales airing from 5 pm until 6 pm on 3CS Colac, 3YBFM Warrnambool, 3HA Hamilton, 3WM Horsham, 2QN Deniliquin/Echuca, 3NE Wangaratta and Gippsland’s Gold. [6]
In November 2023, ARN announced that it had renewed Christian O'Connell's contract until 2029. [7]
Competitions & Special Events
Sing It For Melbourne
In mid-August 2018, the Global Liveability index was released from the Economist Intelligence Unit, which showed that Vienna had unseated Melbourne as the best city to live in. Christian, after conversing with the mayor, decided that Melbourne needed a song about how wonderful it is, somewhat similar to the idea of Ultravox's 1981 hit "Vienna", as he thought that was the only thing Vienna had over Melbourne. Jack Post wrote the song, with input from listeners.
The song reached #1 on the iTunes rock chart. All proceeds from the song are being donated to the Starlight Foundation. [10]
Christian O'Connell's Gran Final
Leading up to the 2018 AFL Grand Final Christian started a football competition for Melbourne Grandmas to compete in a longest kick competition. The event was held at Whitten Oval on Saturday 22 September 2018. The competition, which was entered into by more than 100 Melbourne Grans, was won by North Melbourne supporter, Bronwyn Fyfe. Her winning kick was 28.54 metres long.
The Gran Final was held again on Sunday, 22 September, 2019 at the Whitten Oval. This year's winner was Carmel Hine with a winning kick of 27.9 meters.
The 2022 Gran Final is changing to see how far someone can kick a footy over 100 cars, if they can get that many. Listeners are donating their cars for this, including a hearse and the yellow Interceptor from the Mad Max movie. This competition is being called "Put Your Car On The Line" (with a jingle modeled after Toto's song 'Hold The Line'). The show ended up with 25 cars, all donated, at Middlepark Bowls Club. The winner is called Paul, who landed his kick on the 15th car and won $5,000.
One Last Dream
Christian asked bands to reunite and compete for the chance to play at One Electric Day with Jimmy Barnes and The Angels. The competition was won by Bungalow, a band who last performed in 1996.
Christian's $50,000 Pay Your Bills
Semi-regular segment (it comes and goes at different parts of the year). Listeners can enter on the Gold 104.3 website, for any bill and any amount, and if chosen the bill will be paid in full.
Christian's $10K Power Tower
New contest segment as of July 2020. Christian provides a subject (such as pizza toppings, or girls names that start with the letter a) and listeners have 15 seconds to name as many things as they can in that category.
Christian O'Connell's Gold-A-Thon!
In summer 2021, during the Olympic Games in Tokyo, the gang was giving away a gold washing machine every time Australia won a gold medal. [11] In summer 2022, the Gold-a-Thon returns for the Commonwealth Games. Every time gold is won in Birmingham, a gold kettle will be given away. [12]
The Tradie Games
In July 2022, the team started a competition to find out who is the toughest, hardest working of all the tradies (tradesmen) for a $5,000 prize from Sutton Tools. Competitions included a coffee run, a reverse parking challenge, and a Tradie Pentathlon comprising wheelie heavy barrow, skip basketball, the mystery saw, hammerschlagen, the Hero's Crawl, ending in a final sprint to grab the cash. A plumber called Jason was declared the King of All Tradies. [13]
The Kitchen O'Connell Show
In October 2022, listeners have been asked to provide short videos to win the opportunity to have Christian and the gang take the show on the road to their house. The winner will host the gang (and their equipment) in their house, along with 80s band Pseudo Echo, and win a $60,000 kitchen makeover. Ultimately, a listener called Monika in Dingley Village, who has "Melbourne's tiniest kitchen" won the competition.
Win a Billboard
In January 2023, the team had access to 100+ digital billboards all around Melbourne that could be updated in real time, with input from listeners. The team would take calls and hear stories from listeners and choose the most compelling message to put on the billboard. After a disaster that spoiled someone's marriage proposal early in the contest (known as the 'Sorry Mitch' incident [14] ), no more marriage proposals were allowed.
Win-A-Billboard returned in July 2023 and at the end of January 2024 (for two weeks).
Wedding in a Week
In February 2023, just at Valentine's Day, Christian and the team got the idea to help someone get married, as they had an officiant available to perform a ceremony with no real venue or anything else. Listeners started calling in, not only to be the folks who won the wedding, but also to offer services that the team had not thought of (like rings, or the hair/makeup for the bride). A couple named Aaron and Laura got married in "Christian's Chapel of Love" in the sales office of the radio station on Feb 17, with a cello player, serenaded by an opera singer, all put together in less than 3 days.
Christian O'Connell's Goal-A-Thon!
With the 2023 Women's World Cup when the Matilda's score a goal, listeners have the chance to win prizes from ENS on the next morning's show. The first gift give away is a cordless Bosch vacuum. This is likely in lieu of the Commonwealth Games not happening in Australia, which would have been the usual Gold-A-Thon activity.
Backpacks for Vic Kids/Christian O'Connell Live On Stage/Santa Packs
Near the start of the pandemic, in 2021, a caller made a plea for donations to help Backpacks for Vic Kids, which provides school backpacks for underprivileged kids. Listeners, in the span of a couple days, donated over $1 million. Christian and the team is holding a live event in August 2023 at a local club where 100% of ticket sales will benefit the charity, as they've run out of funds.
In November 2023, the show made another plea for Santa Packs for kids that are going to be in care away from families during the Christmas season as they were out of donations again. In 24 hours they raised $109,000 when they initially were hoping for $35,000. As a result, the donation will be able to fulfill most requests. While on-air Christian informed the charity that one of the directors of Chemists Warehouse is going to make a personal donation of $52,000, which would raise the total to roughly $162,000 and provide packs to over 4600 children in care.
A few days after they started as of the end of the show Monday, Nov 20, people worldwide (due to the podcast reach) had donated a total of just over $200,000, which will provide packs for 5725 children.
Who's Calling Christian
O'Connell encourages listeners to contact celebrities and ask them to ring the show during a period of time. Originally launched on Absolute Radio, the celebrity who wins the public vote wins £10,000 for their charity, and the listener who gets them to call wins £10,000 for themselves (should a celebrity call without prompt from a listener, they will get the full £20,000). The best five telephone calls are selected by the presenters, and the listeners then vote for their favourite. In 2015, Maisie Williams was the winner, and in 2016 Judy Murray won.
Christian relaunched this competition on Gold 104.3 in Melbourne in August 2019, with 57 celebrities calling into the show. The winner was Olivia Newton-John, [15] and her Cancer Wellness And Research Centre received $20,000. The listener who convinced Newton-John to call said he was going to donate $10,000 of his winnings to the same charity.
In September 2020, the next round of Who's Calling Christian launched, with 53 celebrities calling in. The winner was Ricky Gervais, [16] and the charity All Dogs Matter will receive $40,000, as the listener who convinced Gervais to call in is located in the UK and therefore could not receive his $20,000 prize due to contest restrictions in the terms & conditions. Christian also surprised the second-placed celebrity, Shane Warne, the day after announcing Gervais as the winner, to give a $10,000 donation to an Australian charity supporting kids with cancer, as Christian wanted a local charity to benefit as well. [17]
In August 2021, the next round of Who's Calling Christian launched, with a prize of $25,000. The winner was Dean Boxall [18] and the charity Daniel Morcombe Foundation will receive $50,000. The charity itself asked Dean to call, so they get all of the prize money.
Grouse: The Musical
In September 2023, the idea of letting people who didn't have a speaking part in their school plays (so called High School Rejects) have a moment in the spotlight came to be. Listeners were invited to call in and pitch for being in the production, which was put on October 26, 2023 for one night only.
Because of legal entanglements, the team can't do the musical stage version of Grease, so they're doing a parody called "Grouse" as suggested by listeners, and it will be set in Australia in the 1980s. Grouse the Musical highlights can be seen here
The Cash-apult
A couple of years ago (as of late 2023), the show had the idea of creating a large catapult (6 meters tall) that would fire bags of cash at listeners and it was dubbed the Cash-apult. It was actually made from $10,000 of Douglas Fir, but never used due to the pandemic lockdowns starting up, and it was proven to work. Every once in a while it is brought up as something the show would still love to do. As of November 2023, it apparently had gone missing, and a new one needs to be constructed.
The Longest Serve
In order to win tickets to the Men's Final of the Austrailian Open, the show had a contest called The Longest Serve that was held on Jan 24, 2024. 15 competitors, broken into 3 age groups completed - the Young Guns (18-30 year olds), the Seniors (30-60 years old), and the Veterans (60 and over), trying to hit a tennis ball across the Yarra River. The winner, known as Hot Shot (a member of the Seniors), with a 72 meter serve. On a second hit after he was declared winner, he completely cleared the Yarra at 70+ meters. [19]
The Golden Holden
Upon learning that the Holden Museum was being shut down, the team started scouting for a piece of history to give away to listeners. A listener gave up his 2002 golden Holden Commodore to be restored. A parts distributor contributed parts to restore it after finding that the car needed about $40K AUS worth of work, and listeners donated 2000s era car memorabilia such as fuzzy dice, a 5 CD stacker, and reproduced bumper stickers. Listeners just had to re-write lyrics to their favorite songs commemorating the wonder of the Holden to win.
The winner was declared on March 1, to be the listener who took on a song by Cold Chisel by listener vote. As stated in her song, she plans to take the car down to Frankston, Victoria. The winner finally got possession of her "new" car at the end of March 2024, just before the Easter holiday break, due to the extra amount of time required to work on the Holden.
The station has access to a wall on Lygon Street in Melbourne, and is going to pain a wall of fame of legends. Listeners were invited to call in during the first week of March 2024 to nominate those that represent footy for them - this could be your childhood idol, a current legendary player, or someone who is a legend to them.
The Bogun Cookbook
In March 2024, inspired by a discussion on the team, Christian started soliciting recipes from listeners for a "Bogun Cookbook" that they hope to assemble shortly.
Australia 
