‘Just wild’: How Nova had its best year ever in 2024 and even dethroned Kyle & Jackie O
Nova Entertainment's chief growth officer, Adam Johnson, spoke to Mumbrella at the tail end of a banner ratings year for both Nova and smooth, who proved the value of strong national networks.
Sound the saxophones, because smooth is the most popular FM station in both Sydney and Melbourne. And speaking of those two cities, you can ignore the battle between SCA and ARN, because Nova Entertainment actually boasts a larger listenership in both. In fact, as Johnson confirms, this has been the most successful year in the radio network’s history
And they’ve managed to end 2024 with this smugly satisfying statistic: Jase and Lauren have a bigger audience in Melbourne breakfast than Kyle and Jackie O do in Sydney.
“Which is just wild,” Johnson says.
“We are almost 12 months on from when that show became available in the market,” he says, referring to the moment last year when Jason Hawkins and Lauren Phillips were dropped from KIIS 101.1’s breakfast slot to make way for Kyle Sandilands and Jackie Henderson’s expansion in the Melbourne market, one of the key points in a then-freshly-inked $200 million contract.
Nova scooped them up, installed them as its breakfast team, and watched them climb up the fiercely competitive ratings ladder to take the lead in August and keep it for the rest of the year, holding off big name shows from Fifi, Fev and Nick on Fox, Christian O’Connell on Gold – and of course Kyle and Jackie O, who failed to gain traction for KIIS.
“We always felt that that show was a Nova show,” Johnson explains of their decision to snap up Hawkins and Phillips. “All of the launch marketing around it was, Jase and Lauren at home at Nova. So it was never a difficult show to integrate into our business, and our schedule.
“But you just never know. You never know how many Nova listeners would have stayed with what was a new product, how many KIIS listeners would have come over. And then, amongst the enormous amount of radio listening that happens in Melbourne – when you fold in Fox and Gold into that – how many we could bring over?
“And ‘a lot’ feels like the answer. 717,000 as of today, is the answer.”
With Kyle and Jackie O currently boasting 713,000 listeners in the Sydney market, this victory is especially sweet.
Adam Johnson
“Look, it’s more than we could have we could have hoped for,” Johnson claims modestly. “The fact that Kyle and Jackie have been such a juggernaut in Sydney – regardless of what’s happened in Melbourne – to overtake that number is a real moment in time for us. It’s a moment of celebration: to that team, and all they’ve done.”
Jase and Lauren’s rapid ascension is only one of many highlights in what has shaken out to be Nova Entertainment’s most successful year to date.
Smooth is the number one FM station in both Sydney and Melbourne, with familiarity being key to the station’s banner year.
“We’ve had the same daytime and weekend presenters for almost 10 years now,” Johnson notes. “The consistency of that product and that brand is what people lean on. They know: you put on smoothfm, you know what you’re going to get, who you’re going to hear.”
Nova 91.9 is also winning the 25-54 demographic in Adelaide, while Nova’s 93.7 is Perth’s top station with a commanding 14.7% market share.
“When you put together our combined audiences, we’ve got a record network audience across all of our stations,” Johnson confirms. “So, statistically, this has been our most successful survey ever.
“Even outside of the pure numbers, when I think about what we’ve achieved this year, starting with effectively a relaunch of the smooth brand under a new brand proposition, a new Nova breakfast show in Melbourne, and then bedding in a lot of new shows – a lot of show changes that happened in 2023.”
New combinations of familiar faces has worked well at Nova in 2024, as audiences get comfortable with the chemistry.
“This has been the first full year of Fitzy & Wippa with Kate Ritchie, and Ricki-Lee, Tim and Joel,” Johnson notes, “so when I think about all the things we had to do at the start of the year – in terms of our to-do list – and what we’ve achieved, and how that has transpired in the numbers, we are over the moon.”
Nova’s Ricki-Lee, Tim & Joel
Another decision made in 2023 that has paid off was the introduction of a live, national ‘Late Drive’ show from 6pm to 8pm, with Ben, Liam & Belle directly following Ricki-Lee, Tim & Joel in Drive from 4pm to 6pm.
“We’re seeing so much success, pretty much from Chrissy [Swan, who has a national listener of 1.36 million for her 2pm-4pm show] all the way through until 10 o’clock.
“That run from Chrissy into Drive, into Ben, Liam and Belle and then Smallzy, it really feels like the listeners are going from one show to the other and sticking with the brand across their afternoon listening, in the Drive and into the evening.”
Johnson credits this listen loyalty to Nova’s decision to keep live radio rolling throughout the evening.
“I think we are the only station that has a live product in that 6pm slot now,” he points out. “Others are running best of’s. It’s really paying dividends.”
This is seen most clearly in the Adelaide market, where Triple M dominates in Breakfast and across the workday, until around 4pm, when audiences are seemingly switching to Nova.
“Yeah, there’s definitely a shift in listening around that time,” Johnson agrees. “The fact that they’re coming over to Nova for Drive onwards means that there’s brand affinity there. They like the content, they like the playlist. So, more promotion around our breakfast offering [in Adelaide] will ultimately translate into listeners.”
From here, the major decision at Nova seems to be whether or not to just leave things be.
“We had a conversation with my boss this morning about that,” he laughs. “It’s like, if we can continue from an audience point of view, we can replicate ’25 from ’24. And that’s a fantastic starting point.”
If only that were that easy.
“Unfortunately, this industry never stays still,” he notes. “Things that we drive, internal change, as well as reacting to external change means that, when we have this conversation for Survey 8, in ’25, I’m sure we’ll reflect on things having changed around us.
“Our industry, we have to acknowledge, has been in a lot of flux, particularly our two major competitors,” he said, pointing to the ARN’s failed takeover bid of SCA.
“I’m really proud that we have got our heads down. We focused on our products, our audiences and our brands whilst that has been going on around us. Whether that continues into next year in terms of the competitive landscape, we’ll see.
“But as a platform, we’ve got the right product set. Our brands have never been in better health.”
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Nathan Jolly is the Features Editor at Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
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Adam Johnson
Fitzy & Wippa with Kate Ritchie
Jase and Lauren
Nova
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Tim and Joel
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