Features
Dave Cameron on ‘playing the game’ in broadcast and SCA’s cross-platform approach
Off the back of radio ratings survey 5, SCA's chief content officer Dave Cameron speaks to Mumbrella's Kalila Welch about the return of radio audiences as life returns to 'normal', continued consistency in broadcast lineups and SCA's increasing focus on its digital-first strategy.
With the market feeling optimistic about the return of audiences to broadcast radio, Dave Cameron is not getting caught up in the ups and downs of the radio ratings, remaining strong on SCA’s digital-forward strategy, with the network’s signed-in user base projected to double in the next two years.
However, Cameron does not underestimate the importance of broadcast audiences to SCA’s digital and overall success, asserting that the network needs to “play the game” when it comes to growing its broadcast audience, also looking towards cross-platform engagement as a measure of success for new and emerging formats.
Dave Cameron, chief content officer, SCA
Radio Ratings
While Cameron wasn’t keen to dig down into the minutiae of the fifth GfK metro radio ratings survey of 2022, he was characteristically unconcerned about how the network had fared against its competitors in key markets.
“We have 99 stations, so in any radio ratings we’ll always have some ups and some downs – our scoreboard is never perfect. There’s always something that we need to pay particular focus to, or attention to, or certain markets that were evolving, or we’re working with different shows in different times of their lifespan,” he says. “There’s always a ratings day where there’s something to celebrate and also improve on depending on the market.”
Instead, for Cameron, the biggest takeaway from the latest results was an overall return of audiences to radio, as listeners return to their normal activities as we track towards a post-COVID normality.
“Overall, we’re happy because as you’ve seen for the for the industry, and certainly with us as well, audiences are coming back in a big way to radio, and I think that’s fantastic.”
Persisting with consistency to grow broadcast audiences
Speaking to Mumbrella earlier this year, Cameron doubled down on SCA’s commitment to consistency in its content lineups, reiterating 2021 sentiments that changing the lineups again was “no longer an option“.
This strategy remains the same for the network, with Cameron explaining that as much as the network likes to experiment, it was critical to play the game when it comes to growing audiences, consistently, overtime.
“Radio is a game. It’s a long game of consistency, delivering a consistent product and developing a companionship with your audience.”
Cameron points to the Sydney market as the best example of audiences remaining loyal to the shows that have been running for a long time, reiterating that the game SCA “needs to play” is to “continue to not only develop new talent coming through” but for their key timeslots of breakfast and drive, to “make sure that we continue to double down and be consistent” to develop “more loyal listening with their audience”, rather than “chopping and changing”.
For those new and developing formats that have launched outside of the key timeslots, he says that it would be “cruel and unfair” to look at the radio ratings to determine their success, with the network instead looking at the “raw potential of talent”.
This approach comes back to SCA’s holistic perspective, looking at cross-platform audience to understand the success of the content it creates.
For Cameron, Abbie Chatfield, whose new evening show Hot Nights launched earlier this year, is the perfect example of how SCA will be viewing audience engagement into the future.
“Abbie [Chatfield] is a great example of not just taking a linear view of radio ratings for her, but actually seeing how she engages right across multi platforms. That is our future really, in terms of not looking at audiences just through a linear perspective. We look at all of our audiences holistically now about whether they’re listening to a show in real time, or whether they’re listening to it as part of a catch up podcast later in the day, or whether they’re consuming radio content on Insta reels or TikTok. It’s all audience engagement. And that’s the way we view the success of the content we create now. ”
Putting digital at the heart of SCA’s strategy
While broadcast remains important to SCA’s offering, it is no secret that the network has looked to Listnr and its digital assets as strategic stronghold.
Speaking to Mumbrella following the release of SCA’s H122 results, SCA CEO Grant Blackley outlined a “a digital audio first strategy”, describing the network’s plans to continue to invest in and accelerate Listnr and take advantage of growing consumption of audio through connected devices.
Cameron is also firm on this front, reaffirming that “developing and building digital audience is critical” and highlighting the digital streaming of SCA’s broadcast assets as a key element of this strategy. In fact, he attributes 70% of Listnr’s success to its broadcast product.
“It is a very clear focus of making sure that we continue to evolve our radio products and our broadcast products to be able to make them easily consumable for for a digital audience,” said Cameron.
With more than a third of SCA’s shows and radio products now being consumed through digital platforms – a figure that is likely to continue to climb as consumption habits shift – it only makes sense that the network is investing in its digital audience.
The Marty Sheargold Show came to Melbourne’s Triple M breakfast in early 2021
The Marty Sheargold Show on Triple M is one that Cameron offers as exemplifying the synergy between SCA’s broadcast and digital strategies.
“While it hasn’t achieved the GFK radio ratings numbers yet, it has extraordinary numbers from a digital space. So we know that the consumption of that show is growing at a rapid pace for us, and one of our biggest radio products. It just hasn’t achieved the GFK result for us yet.”
Access to this listenership data through their digital platform has been another benefit of SCA’s digital focus, enabling the network to offer advertisers a real time insight into the performance of its products, and the value of its digital audience.
“The market is becoming increasingly interested in knowing the value of our digital audience because it’s data you can see and feel, you can get it on a daily basis and you can trade on that data in real time,” says Cameron.
Beyond the Gfk ratings, which Cameron refers to as a measure of recall, SCA offers advertisers an overview of the “ongoing engagement of audio”, which is measured on a daily basis through download and streaming numbers, as well as social media numbers which Cameron suggests the “true engagement of a piece of content” can be seen.
On what’s next for SCA and Listnr
With SCA’s heavy investment in the Listnr platform seeming paying dividends, and the network increasingly shifting its attention to the world of digital audio, Cameron hints that broadcast radio, at least in the linear sense, will increasingly take a back seat for the network.
On the horizon is a continued push to increase SCA’s volume of original audio content, alongside its content created in partnership with other content creators, such as Wil Anderson or Schwartz Media.
“We are already Australia’s biggest audio content creator. Just the volume of content that we’re creating, both from a podcast and a broadcast point of view, on a daily basis is huge. So we will continue to grow our portfolio, certainly from a digital audio space and we’ll continue to increase our daily content that we create on our own, but also increasingly through partnerships.”
Cameron adds that working with independent creators will remain important to the overall offering for Listnr, with hopes that in the not so distant future we will see Listnr evolve to become “Australia’s biggest distributor of content on top of being Australia’s biggest content creator.”
“I would like to think that is a grand and a pretty viable proposition for Listnr.”
topics
Dave CameronGrant BlackleyHit NetworkHot Nights with Abbie ChatfieldLiSTNRSCAThe Marty Sheargold Show
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