In 1984 2SM was consistently rating above 9 and 10 per cent. The problem was that the station was very heavily skewed towards 10 - 17 year olds where it had a 47% share and it was second (behind MMM) with the 18 - 24 year olds with around a 15% share.
2SM decided to go for an older audience - teenagers do not have that much money to spend. They dropped the “Rock of the 80s” branding and hired Club Veg from JJJ in 1986. Their new branding was a more adult “Stereo 1269 2SM” Ho hum. Doug Mulray’s brother became the station manager. 2SM skewed older but this was probably a mistake. They were now competing against 2 FM stations and 2WS and 2UW. The teenagers drifted and the ratings slid. In April 1988 they become Lite’N’Easy 1269. At this point they cut loose the under 24 year olds and this enabled Triple M to reign supreme until the mid 90s.
Thanks for posting these ratings. I am always amazed how 2CH ruled the airwaves with “Beautiful Music”. No such music can be found on Sydney’s airwaves nowadays. Did the 2CH audience simply die? We also forget how 702 struggled against its commercial competitors (a 2.9% share?) and that the Carlton - Laws combo on 2GB was possibly even stronger than the Jones - Hadley duo today. As for 2KY? It showed that sport, talk, music and racing can work - take note MMM and MSR.