Melbourne radio ratings: 3AW is still #1 but Gold104.3 continues to deliver
The final GfK radio survey of 2020 has cemented 3AW’s continued dominance of the Melbourne market, despite the Nine Radio-owned station losing share both overall and in the breakfast slot.
After growing its impressive share during Melbourne’s lockdown, 3AW dipped in survey eight to a 19.6% share of listening, losing just one percentage point. Recently installed breakfast show Ross Stevenson and Russel Howcroft fell 3.4 percentage points to finish with a 25% share, still more than double their nearest rivals on ABC Melbourne.
Howcroft and Stevenson end the year at #1
Survey eight is the third survey to be released since the COVID-enforced break, which saw several surveys skipped during 2020. The latest survey covered the period from Sunday, 20 September to Saturday, 28 November.
ABC Melbourne was the #2 station overall, despite falling -1.3% to a 10.7% share of listening, showing that Melbourne’s appetite for talk and AM radio has remained strong despite lockdown measures easing.
Australian Radio Network’s Gold104.3 maintains its position as the #1 station on the FM band from last time out, gaining just +0.1 points to hold 9% as the year ends. This is the station’s eight consecutive book as the top FM station in the market.
Its closes rival on FM is Nova Entertainment’s Smooth 91.5, who had an impressive result, climbing +1.3 points to a respectable 7.8% share.
Melbourne radio ratings – survey eight [click to enlarge]
Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) will be pleased with the bounce-back of Fox FM, off the back of announcing the addition of Nick Cody to the breakfast slot in 2021.
Overall, Fox gained +1.5% to hit 6.7%, and on breakfast rose +1.6% to hit a 6.6% share of listening. SCA will hope that bringing Cody south from Triple M Brisbane breakfast to join Fifi Box and Brendan Fevola will continue that trend.
The result takes Fox to within striking distance of Gold104.3’s Christian O’Connell, with the Brit ending the year as the #1 FM breakfast show on a 7.5% share.
Meanwhile, Eddie McGuire ends his time Triple M breakfast radio on a high note, alongside co-host Luke Darcy delivering a one percentage point rise to 6.8%. As a result, The Hot Breakfast bows out as the #2 show on FM radio in its time slot.
SCA is yet to confirm a new breakfast show for Triple M Melbourne in 2021.
Drive is still led by Tom Elliot on 3AW who holds 16.9%, ahead of Raf Epstein on ABC Melbourne with 10.6%.
Among the FM drive shows, Gold’s Gavin Miller holds a slender lead of just 0.1% over Fox FM’s Hughesy and Ed, who gained 2 percentage points to deliver a 7.7% share in their final survey before moving to 2Day FM breakfast in 2021.
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Zanda Wilson was a reporter and podcast producer at Mumbrella, specialising in radio reporting. He left Mumbrella in September 2021.
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