KiisFM Sydney’s Kyle & Jackie O content is ‘rude and crude’: Nova’s Paul Jackson
Nova Entertainment’s group programme director Paul Jackson has said KiisFM’s Sydney radio ratings results are “not important” to him and suggested Nova is not chasing the audience which is attracted to Kyle and Jackie O’s “rude and crude” content.
Nova’s Paul Jackson describes Kyle & Jackie O content as ‘rude and crude’
Speaking to Mumbrella following the results for survey two – which saw SmoothFM become the number one FM station across Sydney and Melbourne for the first time ever and SmoothFM and Nova96.9 tie for second place in the breakfast slot behind Kyle & Jackie O – Jackson said it’s clear now the two stations have found their momentum.
When pushed on if Nova Sydney and Smooth Sydney could close the gap on KiisFM’s breakfast duo Kylie and Jackie O, Jackson dismissed the competition between the programs.
“That is absolutely not important to me,” he said.
“Yeah, they’ve been around for 12 or 13 years but I don’t know if you’ve seen the content they do, how rude and crude it is, there is an audience for that but it’s not our audience.
“If you look at cume [cumulative audience] and how many people listen, Nova has more listeners,” Jackson continued.
“The type of listener we have can trust our brands, can engage with them and know what the style of content they’re consistently going to get and our advertisers want to be associated with us and can trust us, we have family values if you like, we’re inclusive, that’s our proposition.”
KiisFM’s Kyle and Jackie O posted a cumulative audience – that is is the total number of different people who listen to a station for at least eight minutes during any time period –of 818,000 for survey two – down from 840,000 in survey one – while Nova’s Fitzy & Wippa grabbed a cumulative audience of 544,000, up from 495,000 in survey one.
Australian Radio Network’s national content director Duncan Campbell rejected the idea Kyle and Jackie O’s content was purely “rude and crude”.
“The Kyle and Jackie O content – while it has always had an edge to it, the level of variety in terms of the content they produce doesn’t just restrict them to it being ‘rude or crude’ – the show has far more depth to it than that and that’s why it continues to be a dominant number one FM breakfast show,” he said.
Nova’s Jackson said survey two’s results were the best numbers the company has produced.
In Sydney, SmoothFM posted a Monday to Sunday audience share of 9.9%, winning the FM market in the harbour city, with Smooth also dominating in Melbourne with a 9.9% share, while in Brisbane Nova106.9 reigned supreme with a share of 13.8%.
Paul Jackson: This is the best day in the company’s history
Jackson said it is the first time any network has won both Sydney and Melbourne “in 10 years”.
“This is the best day in the company’s history, these are the best numbers we’ve had by some distance across the board. We’ve won the eastern seaboard, our Brisbane station went back to number one,” he said.
“In Sydney specifically, for Smooth 9.9 share – in Sydney and in Melbourne, that’s extraordinary to get the same number in both, we’ve never done that before, the cumes are also extremely high and the the breakfast shows are incredibly high and you get to the weekend and and we’re doing 15-16 shares, that’s just unheard of.”
For survey two, SmoothFM had a total Monday to Sunday cumulative audience of 876,000 compared to Australian Radio Network’s WSFM’s cumulative audience of 678,000. In Melbourne, SmoothFM had a Monday to Sunday cumulative audience of 878,000 while ARN’s Gold grabbed a Monday to Sunday cumulative audience of 904,000.
Nova in Sydney reported a cumulative audience across Monday to Sunday of 1.005m while Australian Radio Network’s KiisFM had a cumulative audience of 890,000. In Melbourne, Nova posted a cumulative audience of 1.012m while Southern Cross Austereo’s FoxFM had a cumulative audience of 1.081m.
Jackson said: “To be in that territory, to not just win the day and the market but to win by a couple of share points. It feels like we’ve got that momentum and we’re back into our groove.
“Nova’s cume is over a million, you’ve got for surveys one and two, one in five people in the entire city listening to our radio station. It’s absolutely sensational.
“It’s extraordinary, the whole network position is our best ever. We’re so far ahead of the competition, we’ve got 600,000 more listeners than Austereo or ARN in the big cities.”
ARN’s Duncan Campbell however said while SmoothFM definitely has a place in market, the numbers are somewhat “overinflated” due to recent marketing efforts.
“Gold is holding its own in Melbourne against the rise of Smooth,” he said.
“We have to factor this in -it’s off the back of a strong marketing campaign. They did that in both cities – in January last year it was Sydney and this year it was Melbourne, that resulted in the rise of Smooth.”
“I’m really encouraged by the results in Melbourne for Gold because we did deploy various tactics down there which have worked – we have seen the breakfast show increase, daytime numbers have not dropped, Gold has performed very well considering that Smooth was going to impact as a result of the marketing campaign.
“I think Smooth will remain a relatively strong station but these numbers, certainly this big increase in Sydney, is overinflated.”
Duncan Campbell: When Smooth goes up, WS will go down
Campbell added ARN is working on marketing campaigns for WSFM and Gold.
“While I say that I don’t dismiss the Smooth format, it definitely has a place in the market, off the back of marketing these numbers tend to spike sometimes as we saw in Sydney last year, and towards the end of last year that started to settle,” he added.
In terms of the competition between WSFM and SmoothFM in Sydney, Campbell said there is lots of audience share between the two programs.
“On WS we’ve improved the music, the breakfast show is sounding very strong but there is a lot of audience sharing between those two stations – one goes up, the other will go down,” he said.
“It is incumbent upon us to ensure the awareness of WS is lifted through marketing and we continue to improve the product.”
WSFM posted a Monday to Sunday total people audience share of 7% compared to SmoothFM’s 9.9%.
In breakfast the gap was narrower with SmoothFM’s Sydney team on a share of 7.3% and WSFM’s Brendan Jones and Amanda Keller posted a share of 6.7%.
However, WSFM did see its cumulative audience decline during survey two from 715,000 in survey one to 678,000 in survey two. Jonesy and Amanda’s breakfast show had a cumulative audience of 298,000, up from survey one’s 293,000.
While Campbell acknowledges cumulative audience can be a “health check” for a station, he said stations needed to take note of longer-term trends.
“You’ve got to look at the cume trends. WS is off this book but there’s no strong trend reinforcing that,” he said.
“This Nova spike of 118,000 – that’s not going to be sustained. It’s really important the overall trend comes into play here. Cume is a good health check, if you do have a cume decline over several surveys, you know you’ve got issues. Just as you shouldn’t crow based on one book, you shouldn’t knee jerk to a decline that is only evident in one survey.”
Campbell is referencing Nova Sydney’s cumulative audience growth of 118,000 listeners which saw the cumulative audience grow from 887,000 in survey one, to 1.005m in survey two.
When it comes to cumulative audiences, the Brisbane market saw declines in the breakfast timeslot across Triple M, 97.3FM and Hit105 despite all those shows, with the exception of 97.3FM, posting share increases in the timeslot.
SCA’s Triple M breakfast show Marto, Ed & Robin posted a survey two share of 12.8%, up 2.1 share points on survey one, and a cumulative audience of 228,000, down from 243,000 in survey one.
ARN’s 97.3FM breakfast trio Bianca, Terry & Bob had a share of 10% for survey two, down 1.1 share points, while it had a cumulative audience of 298,000, down from 319,000 in survey one.
SCA’s Hit 105’s Stav, Abby & Matt with Osher reported a share of 12.2, up 0.3 share points, while it posted a cumulative audience of 293,000, down from 309,000.
Nova’s Ash, Kipp & Luttsy was the only commercial FM breakfast show to grow both audience share and cumulative audience – it grabbed a share of 12.8%, up 2.1 points, while it reported a cumulative audience of 346,000 up from 317,000.
Gemma Fordham: Brisbane is a close race now
For Southern Cross Austereo’s Hit Network head of content Gemma Fordham, Brisbane breakfast has become a “close race now”.
“We had a strong result for Hit Brisbane last book, you always expect certainly with Brisbane because there’s been a lot of change in the market, for survey two you want to see what the pattern is and if there’s a bit of settling down with cume.
“It was really great for us that Hit105 had always grown last book quite substantially, so to see it grow again this book and for breakfast to grow yet again is great.
“But it’s a close race there now but that’s alright, bring it on,” Fordham quipped.
Mike Fitzpatrick: Brisbane is just a fairytale
Triple M head of content Mike Fitzpatrick described Triple M Brisbane’s breakfast performance as a “fairytale”.
“Brisbane is just a fairytale. We took the opportunity to grab Robin Bailey when ARN fumbled the ball and let her go at the end of last year. We’ve not only seen our audience adopt and love her but we’ve seen a real shift in the Brisbane market.”
However, ARN’s Campbell argues the movement cannot be attributed to the shift of Bailey from 97.3FM to Triple M.
“We’ve done recent, pretty extensive market study into Brisbane. We pretty much know what is going on there,” he said.
“The movement to Triple M from 97.3FM wasn’t necessarily driven by females and wasn’t necessarily driven by Robin Bailey. The market has undergone a lot of churn, there was a lot of change.
“The first survey saw a poor result for Nova, they’ve recovered well back to where they are normally. Triple M are sitting where they normally sit, that 0.2 increase isn’t necessarily great, their breakfast increased a little bit.
“There is an impact of the changes that took place in the market and 97.3FM has been impacted by that, but it’s not necessarily movement to other stations because of Robin Bailey.”
Campbell argues while down, 97.3FM’s cumulative audience of 508,000 – down from 543,000 in survey one, is “a pretty good cume” for the station overall.
“The breakfast show did lose a little bit, but overall we’re pleased. We’ve had a lot of strong content created by the 97.3 breakfast show and we’re getting a lot of coverage and PR from what we’re doing up there, we have confidence in the strategy.
“Just as Nova has corrected, 97.3 will return to normal levels over the next couple of books as we know any movement is not the direct result of an individual.”
Miranda Ward worked for Mumbrella from 2013 to 2017, eventually becoming deputy editor. Miranda joined Mumbrella in September 2013 from Sky News.
Linkedin
Is this the same Fitzy and Wippa that put Samantha in a dark room – blindfolded – and she had to feel her way around? Fitzy was in the room naked. How funny was it when she grabbed Fitzy’s penis?
Hysterical stuff. And much less crude than anything on Kyle and Jackie O.
User ID not verified.