Melbourne radio ratings: Russ & Ross buck trend; Triple M surges while a new leader emerges in Drive
Triple M has delivered its strongest survey in Melbourne since the first survey period of 2019, taking a 7.3% overall share, a rise of 1.5 percentage points in GfK radio survey six for 2022.
The station saw rises in both key slots, with Marty Sheargold’s breakfast show up one point to a 6.3% share, while ‘Rush Hour’ combo James Brayshaw and Billy Brownless, in their first year in the drive slot rose 2.2 points to a 8.2% share, a positive result for both as the AFL season reached its crescendo during the survey period, which ran between 10 July and 17 September.
Melbourne Survey Six [click to enlarge]
Despite a second successive setback for 3AW in overall share, breakfast duo Russel Howcroft and Ross Stevenson recovered recent losses, gaining 1.7 points overall, while Tom Elliot dropped back another two points to a 10.2% share, ceding the top spot in the drive slot to Gold FM’s Dave “Higgo” Higgins, who once again gained share, rising 0.8 points to a 12.8% share.
Elliot’s show now sits alongside Fox FM’s national drive duo, Carrie and Tommy in second spot, while ABC Melbourne’s drive show with Raf Epstein also continued to drop, now sitting at a 5.9% share, with Nova’s Kate, Tim & Joel also dropping slightly from 10.1 to 9.9%.
Overall, 3AW now sits on a 13.4% share following two successive setbacks, its lowest share since the start of the pandemic, in which time it reached as high as a 20.6% overall network share.
Marty Sheargold’s breakfast show saw an uptick, as did the network
Gold FM was again the second top station overall, rising 0.1 point to sit on a 11.9% overall share, with breakfast host Christian O’Connell also retaining his spot in second, despite a 0.3 point drop back to 10.2%.
There were no other major network movers in this survey, aside from KIIS, which dropped down 0.9 points to a 6.7% overall share after successive books of growth.
In the breakfast slot, each of Fox FM, Nova, Smooth FM, and KIIS saw minor setbacks, while ABC Melbourne’s Sammy J also dropped from 8.6% to 8.2%, with the show seemingly plateaued after a strong 2021.
SCA’s Dave Cameron will likely be pleased with the result, as he told Mumbrella this month Marty Sheargold’s show exemplifies the synergy between SCA’s broadcast and digital strategies, “while it hasn’t achieved the GFK radio ratings numbers yet”.
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Calum Jaspan was news editor at Mumbrella, based in Melbourne. He was also the producer and host of the Mumbrellacast. He left Mumbrella in May 2023.
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3AW
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Melbourne radio ratings
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Russel and ross
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The two who replaced the Ross and Russ breakfast show were a better mix.
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Breakfast on ABC early mornings hasn’t been any good since Red Symons was moved aside.
Jacinta Parsons is always interesting to listen to and easy on the ear unlike so many of the other presenters who gabble as though they haven’t a minute to live. Perhaps they know something that most of us don’t
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The time has come, in my opinion, for 3AW to revamp the afternoon show. I’ve changed stations because of it’s lack of attraction, inane interviews and the poor performance of the presenter.
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