National radio ratings: wins, losses and negotiations
Everyone’s a winner on radio ratings day. Look deep enough into the stats, and there’ll be a victory somewhere in the numbers.
But focusing on the big picture – the biggest commercial winner nationally, at least in terms of growth in cumulative audience, was arguably Nine Radio. This largely came off the back of an incredible survey five for Melbourne’s 3AW, led by Breakfast duo Ross Stevenson and Russel Howcroft.
The biggest decline in the cumulative audience came from the ARN network, whose Gold and KIIS networks lost metropolitan listeners.
National metropolitan audiences broadly held for radio in survey five. But there were some significant shifts station by station – and not just in share. The shifts were also in the amount of time listeners are spending with their favourite stations.
Mumbrella covers all of the markets in more detail:
Sydney was a strange survey, full of big share losses for market leaders 2GB and KIIS – but these declines mostly came (particularly for 2GB) because of lower time spent listening
Melbourne saw news talk station 3AW doing what it does best – blitzing the competition.
Brisbane was a relatively close race, with just 1.2 percentage points separating the top four stations.
Perth saw Nova extend its lead over the rest of the market.
Adelaide was an interesting survey, with a change in the #1 position.
It’s worth pointing out the national result for the ABC. After a long period of decline, this was a better survey overall for the national broadcaster. There were still cumulative audience drops at Triple J, but these were more than offset by growth at ABC Local and News Radio. This will come as very good news for the struggling ABC, which has been undergoing reviews of programming.
In a tale of two networks, SCA’s Triple M saw growth in cumulative audience, while the Hit network shed listeners in Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth. There’s been much media speculation recently about the potential for ARN’s ratings powerhouses Kyle and Jackie O to jump ship back to Hit in Sydney when their contract expires at the end of next year. These results for SCA and ARN might just make those conversations even more pointed.
Ratings days are always a stressful time in a radio station. Presenters and producers are anxious about how listeners are responding to their shows. Executives are nervous about the decisions they’ve made. And sales teams are watching closely to see what they’ll have to take to market for the next five or six weeks.
A good set of audience numbers makes all the difference heading into September and October. These are two of the most heavily-traded months of the year, thanks in part to the AFL and NRL finals. And we know that all commercial networks are under pressure right now from a declining advertising market – over the last couple of weeks ARN, SCA and Nine Radio have all released their results. And all of them show trading conditions are short and competitive.
This is not a new trend. Overall metro radio commercial revenue was slipping pre-COVID, and then tumbled during the pandemic. According to data from Commercial Radio & Audio (CRA), overall revenue was $803 million in FY 2018. This declined to $800 million in FY 2019, and collapsed when COVID hit to $643 million in FY 2020 and $627 million the next year. It recovered to $685 million in FY 2022. The most recent financial year got off to a good start, with good growth in July to October 2022, then the decline set in again.
Now the search begins for the winners hidden within the ratings – because these are the stories sales teams will rely on to win a larger share of that shrinking market.
Michael Thompson is the co-host of business podcast Fear & Greed. Before that, he was the national executive producer of Macquarie Media (including news talk stations 2GB, 3AW, 4BC, 6PR)
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