‘It’s not just about going after a younger audience and trying to be cool and groovy’: Nine Radio’s Byrnes
After a shift away from COVID in the radio market, Nine Radio’s stations have continued to perform well. Director of content – radio, Greg Byrnes tells Mumbrella’s Calum Jaspan how it hopes to grow its audience, but why it doesn’t want to do so at the expense of the fundamentals it does best.
Nine Radio’s 3AW and 2GB once again topped the pile in GfK radio ratings survey five for the year, as both have done all year long, and director of content – radio, Greg Byrnes insists it is something the network “doesn’t take for granted”.
The conversation was dominated in both 2020 and 2021 by COVID’s impact on the radio sector, with talkback providing a ratings hit for both Nine Radio and ABC’s local stations, yet its only the former that has been able to maintain its audience as some sort of normality resumes.
What next for Nine Radio’s stations then? Byrnes says its stations are aiming to attract “an even larger audience”, but it doesn’t want that to come at the expense of TSL (time spent listening), which has continued to be a focus for him and his team.
