The sixth metro radio survey of the year has landed and, as ever, there’s plenty to pore over from major media markets across the country. As per usual, we’ll kick things off in Sydney before covering highlights of the latest movers and shakers from other markets.
Drivetime dominated the Sydney results this time around and there was a strong “changing of the guard” feeling as Nova’s popular drivetime crew fell behind KIISFM’s Hughesy and Kate with a drop to 9.7%. With Hughesy and Kate’s contract currently up for renewal, they couldn’t have picked a better time to squeak into the lead.
The biggest drivetime losers weren’t Nova, however. That unfortunate honour fell to 2DayFM’s Hamish and Andy who dropped down 1.6 points to 5.2% overall share. With the show already scheduled to finish at the end of the year, the drop is perhaps not all that surprising, but 2DayFM will be keen for their replacements to inherit momentum rather than decline – the next few months should be interesting!
In breakfast news, the standout item was a further fall for Kiis’ Kyle and Jackie O show. The once untouchable duo are now joint second with WSFM’s Jonesy and Amanda show on 10.3%, 2GB’s Alan Jones again securing the number 1 position.
Meanwhile, in Melbourne, 3AW maintained its iron grip on the local breakfast market, with a whopping 16.2% share. Smooth FM scored a second successive first in overall FM rankings with a one-point increase up to 10.5% of overall share. There was further good news for Smooth in a critical local segment as they grabbed the drive crown with Byron Webb jumping to 10.8% to pip Fox FM’s Hamish and Andy to the post.
Turning to Brisbane, things remained largely the same at the top across market segments with Nova continuing to lead on 13.5%, out in front of the chasing pack of 97.3FM, Hit 105, and Triple M who are all clustered together in the 10-11% bracket. Nova’s breakfast crew won the commercial breakfast crown with it’s closest rivals 97.3 and Triple M both sitting on 10.1 each. Expect this to be a battle royale heading into the last two surveys of the year.
Finally, we move on to Perth and Adelaide. Perth remained relatively stable at the top of the tree, though alarm bells will possibly be ringing at Hit92.9. They dropped 2.1 points overall and saw a worrying decline in breakfast audience down from 11.2% to 9.3%. Mix102.3 continues to dominate in Adelaide meantime, with Nova coming in at second on the FM dial 11.0 share points. Interestingly, breakfast in this market was a very tight race with FiveAA taking it out at 12.4 share points even after losing 1.2 points on the last survey closely followed by Mix 102.3 sitting at 12.1 this survey.
Radio continues to be a key channel for both advertisers and consumers across Australia and we’ll continue our regular analyses of local markets in the remaining two surveys of 2017. Stay tuned for further details to see who emerges as the biggest winners and losers by the end of the year!
Source : GFK Survey 6, 2017
