Radio ratings: Syd – Smooth dominates Drive; Melb – audiences desert Hot Breakfast; Bris – Nova dominates Breakfast and Drive
Sydney: Smooth dominates as it claims top spot in Drive and second in Breakfast
SmoothFM’s breakfast team of Bogart Torelli and Glenn Daniel have jumped into second place in the FM breakfast station rankings, with KiisFM’s Kyle Sandilands and Jackie ‘O’ Henderson retaining their crown as most popular FM breakfast show.
Smooth claimed a share of 7%, down 0.4 share points, while Kyle and Jackie O saw their share dip by 0.6 points from 10.4% to 9.8%.
Sydney radio ratings survey 5, 2016. Total audience share. Source: GfK
Triple M’s Grill Team claimed third place, leapfrogging Nova’s Ryan Fitzgerald and Michael ‘Wippa’ Wiplifi, with a share of 6.9% while Fitzy & Wippa grabbed a share of 6.8%.
Australian Radio Network’s WSFM breakfast duo of Brendan Jones and Amanda Keller came second last on the rankings with a share of 6.7%, up 0.6 points on the previous survey.
2DayFM’s Sam Frost and Rove McManus saw their audience grow by 0.2 points to a share of 4.1% but still came in last in the FM breakfast rankings. Alan Jones’ breakfast program on 2GB continues to dominate in Sydney with a share of 14.3%.
Overall, Smooth held onto their title as most popular FM radio station in Sydney with a share growth of 0.5 points to claim a share of 9.6%. KiisFM were a little behind with an overall Monday to Sunday share of 8% while WSFM grabbed third place with a share of 7.6%, up 1.4 share points on the previous survey.
Sydney radio ratings survey 5, 2016. Mon-Fri and breakfast audience share. Source: GfK
Nova posted a total share of 7% while Triple M managed a share of 6%.
In drive, Smooth’s Byron Webb claimed the top spot in drive after boosting his share by 1.7 points to 10.1%, pushing KiisFM’s Dave Hughes and Kate Langebroek into second place with a share of 9.6%.
In at third place, was Nova’s Kate Ritchie, Tim Blackwell and Marty Sheargold who saw their share slid by 1 share point to 9.1%. 2DayFM’s Hamish Blake and Andy Lee once again suffered the biggest drop – down 1.4 share points to a share of 5.6%.
Melbourne: McGuire’s Hot Breakfast cops delayed reaction to drowning comments as breakfast audience slips.
Melbourne radio audiences have had delayed reaction Triple M breakfast host Eddie McGuire‘s comments about drowning sports journalist Caroline Wilson, with the breakfast host and his team affected by a drop of 1.1 share points in the wake of the June controversy.
Southern Cross Austereo’s Fox FM has lost its lead in all people as an audience slump saw it dead heat with ARN’s Gold FM.
McGuire’s comments appeared to have little impact in the last survey but listeners deserted the show in the latest survey, dropping from 9.5% to 8.4%.
The desertion had no impact on Triple M’s hold on the top spot in breakfast across the FM stations, with challenger 101.9 Fox FM’s Fifi, Dave and Dev failed to capitalise on McGuire’s woes, losing 0.8 to finish the survey in second with 7.4%.
Nova 100’s Chrissie Swan, Sam Pang and Jonathan Brown did make the most of the opportunity, lifting their share 0.4 to 6.8%.
On AM 3AW maintained its place well above the rest at the top of the table, riding on the back of the federal election with Ross and John at breakfast lifting 0.7% to 19.8%.
In drive Fox FM lost 1.5 points to 11.3%, well ahead of Nova’s Kate Ritchie, Tim Blackwell and Marty Sheargold, up 0.5 to 8.8% and Smooth which finished up 0.3 to 8.4%.Overall in people 10+ Fox FM lost 1.1 share points while Gold’s lift of 0.7 saw the two stations finish in a dead heat with an 8.6% share.
Triple M dropped 0.5 points to 7.4% to fall below Smooth FM which lifted 0.6 to 7.8%
Adelaide: Jodie & Soda retake Breakfast #1
The breakfast duo of Jodie & Soda on Mix102.3 regained top spot from Nova’s pairing of Lewis & Lowe in a sharp audience turnaround in Adelaide. Nova finally pipped Mix in the last radio ratings survey but its time at the top of the breakfast slot was short-lived after an audience decline of 1.3 points in the six weeks to August 13.
With Mix climbing a healthy 2.1 points, it gave the station a share of 13.5%, comfortably ahead of Nova’s 10.4%. The contrasting fortunes were reflected in the overall audience share, with Nova falling 1.3 points to 9.9% and Mix climbing 1.9 points to 14.5%.
Mix also moved to the top of the drivetime slot at the expense of Nova. While Mix was unchanged on 12.4%, Nova slipped 1.4 points to 12.2% . It was a better period for 5MMM which saw its overall share rise 0.5 points to 9.7% after a sharp decline in the previous ratings survey.
Hit 107 was unchanged at 9.1%. On the AM dial, Fiveaa lost 0.3 points to finish the period with an overall audience share of 11.3% with ABC 891 falling 0.1 to 10.9%.
Perth: Nova 93.7 closes gap on Mix 94.5 after both stations report audience declines
It was ‘as you were’ in Perth’s radio market despite Nova 93.7 closing the gap on Mix94.5 in the battle for supremacy in the WA capital.
Mix slipped 0.9 points to 14.4% which allowed Nova to edge closer even though its audience share also fell, by 0.3 points to 12.9%.
In the race for third, Hit 92.9 and youth station Triple J were both unchanged with audience shares of 10.9% and 10.2%, respectively. Nova’s breakfast trio of Nathan, Nat and Shaun retained their top spot in the breakfast battleground despite an audience decline of 0.6 points to 13.8%.
But Clairsy, Matt and Kymba on Mix were unable to make any inroads after their audience fell 0.5 points to 13.1%.
In the Drive slot, it was poor six weeks for both the markets leaders – Lisa and Pete on Mix and Katie Ritchie, Tim Blackwell and Marty Sheargold on Nova – with the teams losing 1.2 and 1.8 points, respectively.
It gave Mix a share of 15% with Nova 13.9%. Nova’s decline enabled Hit 92.9 to climb level with its competitor after recording a 0.6 point rise.
Brisbane: Nova dominates Breakfast and Drive
Nova 106.9 has managed to hold the top spot in Brisbane for the second survey in a row, lifted by strong growth in breakfast and a solid performance in drive.
Nova’s breakfast team of Ash Bradnam, Kip Wightman and David Lutteral ‘Ash, Kip & Luttsy’ managed to lift their audience by 1.3 share points finish with 14.8%.
A rise of 0.9 points by 97.3FM’s Robin Bailey, Terry Hansen and Bob Gallagher to 12.3% did little to dent Nova’s lead.
Triple M managed to surge into third spot in breakfast, as Marto and Ed Kavalee gained 0.8 points pip Hit 105’s Stav, Abbey and Osher who finished with 9.8%
Nova ‘s drive with Kate Ritchie, Tim Blackwell and Marty Sheargold dominated the time slot, up 0.6 points to 17.1% ahead of a 0.8 point lift for Hit’s Hamish Blake and Andy Lee who finished with 13.7%.
While dominant in the breakfast and drive segments, Nova suffered a 2.6 point drop in evenings with Smallzy’s surgery dropping from 17% to 14.4%.
Nova finished with an all people 10+ share of 14.4%, up from 13.7%, while 93.7FM record a rise of 0.4 points to 12.1%.
Hit 105 rounded out the top three with a share of 10.3%, up by 0.2.
You have the Perth numbers in the Melb slot
User ID not verified.
Why does no one talk about actual numbers of listeners? As an advertiser, 6.5% doesn’t mean anything unless I know what 100% equals, but the total number does. Are such figures available?
User ID not verified.
Hi David,
Thanks for that – we’re fixing it.
Cheers,
Miranda – Mumbrella
So true. 2GB Sydney ‘dominates’ the ratings yet their actual number of listeners is around half of that of the top FM stations. The time spent listening skews their rating figure because their audience tunes in for long periods.
User ID not verified.
Subscribers to the survey do get more complete data, including figures that indicate numbers of listeners, breakdowns of listenership every 15 mins, popularity among grocery buyers and so on. But, of course, the survey will remain flawed while they rely so heavily on the diary system that relies on people fillnig in a form saying hat they believe they were listening to. Only a system that records exactly what people are actually listening to — using technology already availabe (see: Shazam) — will tell them this. It will also tell them that, for example, many people switch stations during the ads and the talk breaks — which is exactly what the commercial stations don’t want their advertisers to know. Which is why you won’t be seeing that any time soon.
User ID not verified.
Hi there. Are you actually aware of the factual inaccuracies in this article? When you say Triple M “hold on the top spot in breakfast” in Melbourne, that doesn’t make any sense considering Ross and John on 3AW rate 19.8? I look forward to seeing your response.
User ID not verified.
Hi Melbourne radio listener,
The comment refers to the FM stations – I have edited the sentence to make this more clear.
Cheers,
Miranda – Mumbrella
I am not so sure about. There are millions of older people that have talkback on all day.
If anything talkback would have people listening longer.
100 consecutive survey number ones for Alan Jones. No music station will ever do that in Sydney.
User ID not verified.
BD if only what you say in the second part of your comments was true.
I’ll give you just a few examples. If you rely on streaming data first you are excluding broadcast radio. Second the streaming server has absolutely no idea the listening state of the device receiving the stream – the speakers could be muted. If could theoretically provide the maximum possible audience. On the flip-side the stream could be at a party with dozens of listeners.
If you rely on smartphone apps ‘listening’ to the speaker and then audio-matching you are excluding the c. 30% of people who use buds or headphones.
If you rely on bespoke ‘audio capture’ devices (portable meters, watch meters) specifically designed to perform the task you do get better data than server streams or smartphone apps. But they also have a flaw – we take them out of the laboratory and give them to people who are forgetful creatures. If they fail to carry/wear the device any listening done is lost for ever. If they rely on audio-matching they also have the same problems as smartphones. Bluetooth is also proving to be problematic.
What you do find with electronic measurement cf. diaries is that you get more stations listened to (i.e. lots more channel switching – which is correct) but much lower listening durations because such systems produce more false negatives than diaries (which in some cases produce false positives – e.g. I ALWAYS listen to …).
What on the surface appears an obvious and relatively simple solution is far from it. Having said that, in my opinion, electronic measurement does have a place alongside recall diaries – a hybrid system. We’ve just got to work out how to do it!
User ID not verified.