Triple M in Newcastle are topping the ratings (granted, New FM is a fairly weak competitor), whilst its Townsville station is a strong #2, so I don’t think SCA would be in any rush to rebrand those stations back to its respective heritage brands.
I do agree with you about rebranding their Gold Coast & Central Coast stations back to their respective heritage brands though.
4TO has a lot of history and was a power house before it went to Triple M. Personally I would rebrand Triple M back to 4TO and have a local playlist. I still know a lot in Townsville still refer it as 4TO
Geez, is anyone listening to 92.5 anymore? SCA saw the sense in doing a mea culpa with Sea FM, surely time to do the same with Gold FM? Might need some work with the insipid music log when they do it though.
And I know we say it every time with the Gold Coast, but gee I’d love to see the raw breakdown of results with the non-published stations listed as well. It honestly would not surprise me if 94.1 was nipping at the heals of 92.5, although their audience would of course skew much older.
It wouldn’t surprise me if both 94.1 and Breeze are nipping at the heals of 92.5. Breeze has a pretty good profile on the coast.
Honestly SCA are lucky that ARN hasn’t done something (yet) with Hot Tomato’s awful playlist or the gap would be much wider.
Triple M is winning by default in Newcastle as it has no competition really.
4TO would be doing way better than Triple M Townsville is now. No doubt about it.
Agree @Brianc68. The rock format of Power 100 would also account for some of the lost 4TO/MMM share.
Yep. Triple M Newcastle could be called almost anything and they’d still flog the competition there.
And 4GR in Toowoomba, still a lot of pissed off people here in Toowoomba.
SCA have no idea, less networking and more local content is the key, it’s what made radio work in the past, but the been counters at SCA seem to have their heads up their arses about it all.
It’s more than just a name. The content and playlist needs to be tailored to each city as well.
A new name with the same boring safe playlist and networked shows isn’t going to rate any better.
A well deserved result for Hot Tomato.
The true strength of all local GC/Tweed based commercial radio stations can not be found in public GFK/CRA GC survey releases. The OTHER share is huge - now up over a third of the market, listening to stations that are not individually listed.
Who are 34%+ of the market listening to?
The survey includes the ABC, most Brisbane AM/FM commercials, Sea 90.9, MMM 92.5 & Hot Tomato.
But they don’t publicly publish the other three Gold/Tweed coast based commercial FM stations. Rebel 99.4, Radio 97/104.1 and Breeze 100.6 all have licence area overlaps with the GC (Brisbane doesn’t), all three operate commercial FM transmitters based within the GC licence & survey area, provide local GC/Tweed created programming, and all three provide wider FM signal coverage on the GC than the published Brisbane commercial FM’s.
Rebel 99.4 and Breeze 100.6 have previously been barred from participating, either as fully paid participants, or via complimentary listings that most Brisbane commercial stations receive.
Isn’t it in the commercial industry’s broader interest to transparently encourage publishing all overlapping commercial stations heard in the GC market, not just publish select Brisbane stations?
Until this changes, the market is left asking the biggest unanswered question of the survey;
Who exactly is a whopping 34%+ of the market listening to that are not published?
Wonder what the asking price is now?
Remember that >34% is from the sample who went to the effort to specify the unlisted alternative.
That’s why the methodology is flawed as the true choices aren’t accurately recorded.
Radio 97 also should do ok in morning slots with Steve Murphy and Brooke Marsden on breakfast & Laws mornings.
We all know that stations aren’t included when they post a threat and can be explained away to gullible clients.
Sunshine FM covering much of Sunshine Coast council (ie. not Noosa Shire or fmr Caboolture Shire in Nambour RA1) and 4CRB (same licence area as GC commercials) both invest in extensive audience research surveys as does Territory FM Darwin. These often show up the commercial shares.
Perhaps Rebel Media should do similar? If CRA don’t like it, do you really need them? They constantly take positions against your interest in favour of members with more stations, they’re being inequitable as it is.
Good luck having any of this published by Radio Today et al, there are comments that simply aren’t moderated and therefore remain unpublished.
CBAA members in the community sector may have greater freedom in how they survey.
CRA dictate how their member stations engage in publicly released surveys. Rebel Media can’t get in the CRA GFK GC/Tweed survey, and flagged commissioning its own independent GC survey outside CRA. That resulted in a letter from the CRA CEO warning of potential consequences including station membership expulsion from CRA.
Part of the hypocrisy is that a number CRA GFK/Xtra Insights surveys include areas well outside the commissioning commercial stations ACMA licence areas, including some into Rebel’s exclusive ACMA licence area. That includes the GC/Tweed survey.
It would be quite challenging for a commercial station owner to be the only Australian commercial broadcaster outside CRA, which is a point not lost on CRA. Additionally, it’s economically challenging for two regional commercial stations to potentially ‘go it alone’ without group representation for national sales, and armed only with a competing ‘non-bible’ commercial survey not conducted under the CRA GFK/Xtra Insights umbrella.
With friends like CRA, there is no easy path forward.
My above post was sent to the editors of RadioToday and RadioInfo last Thursday.
I know of at least three other comments currently unpublished.
Mate if it don’t fit the SCA narrative it won’t get posted and that is what sucks about those Radio News Pages
Hot Tomato’s Breakfast announced at about 8.58am yesterday on their last show of the year that Christo was departing the breakfast slot after 10 years for another on-air role at the station.
Wow. That’s pretty big and a bit odd they left it to so late in the last show of the year.
No formal goodbye? Something’s up.
Off to Triple M GC Breakfast?