No, that decision was made locally (as is the current playlist). The content team is local, and most certainly do know/understand Perth. I wouldn’t say Basil is “not well liked”, he’s just polarising.
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Kyle Sandilands is polarising and can pull more than 10% in Sydney breakfast.
Basil Zempilas is polarising and appeals to no one under the age of 40, as evidenced by how poor his Triple M stint rated compared with his time at 6PR.
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I think that hes just had his time, but his time had gone before he even started at Triple M. The 5 minutes of sport presenting or being quite generic on Sunrise was palatable, but 3 of breakfast radio was too much
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Tim Burrowes has some interesting stats for Radio National’s ratings, but, as he says, it’s not good with ABC News Radio outranking it in various metrics at a fraction of the cost
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There’s no doubt RN is in a funk. While there are some good programs the whole thing sounds disjointed and just a collection of podcasts, rather than a live national station.
I also think the ABC’s digital strategy isn’t working. In the capital cities you have ABC Local, RN, and NewsRadio on AM and the ABC refuses to acknowledge the existence of, or leverage in any way, DAB+
Heck they don’t even tell you what the AM frequency is anymore. Fewer and fewer people would even know how to find RN these days in the capitals. At least it’s on FM in regional areas.
The only thing ABC promote is the Listen app, which is glitchy and awkward, like most streaming apps!
Time for ABC to acknowledge and leverage DAB+ in the cities, and promote the actual AM and FM frequencies! They need to do more to try to get on FM somehow too, in as many places as possible. AM-only is dead in the cities, or soon will be. Apart from the likes of 3AW and 2GB with glued on listeners, and the AM music stations like 4BH and 2UE that actually promote the heck out of DAB+.
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I actually think it would be worthwhile for the ABC to roll out Double J to the regions on FM, replacing RN on FM in some regional cities such as the Gold Coast.
It would be a better use of spectrum IMO.
RN can still be heard online, on TV and mobile app.
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Surely the performance of the ABC’s radio offerings has to be concerning people at the broadcaster - the ratings of their “local” stations aren’t great either.
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ABC Radio Melbourne on 5.8 hitting the lowest I can recall for it though I don’t have figures for the most recent years. But looking back I can see it fell into the 6s a few times during the 1980s, e.g. rating 6.6 in Survey 4/1983 and then you’d have to go as far back as 1964 to see it rated 6.4 in Survey 3/1964. Though its ratings were constantly being challenged by having to air Parliament up until the late 1980s so its numbers were fluctating a lot from one survey to the next.
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To me Double J sounds just like Triple J, only slightly softer. Double J is a missed opportunity in my opinion - it’s too niche in appeal and not different enough from Triple J.
Double J isn’t want the regional towns need and ratings (ie. People listening) would be miniscule. Even Triple J doesn’t really rate well in most regions. What most regional areas need is a more mainstream music-focused station targeting adults, and one that doesn’t feel the need to be seen as “hip and cool”, and dare I say pretentious. That’s whats’s lacking even in some capitals. For some smaller regional areas even ABC Country would be more welcomed than Double J.
Now if it was BBC R2 on FM, then yes.
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Thats because Double J is designed to appeal to people who have listened to Triple J in the past but feel they’ve outgrown it - the music selections are similar (but broader in the age of the music) and a lot of the talent is either ex-Triple J or have had some considerable association with them in the past
I like Double J - it appeals to me as a former listener of JJJ and it would be great (from my perspective) if it was available regionally on the dial, but I’m not sure that it should be as it simply entrenches the current situation in many regional areas of the radio airwaves being filled with basically more of the same.
The lack of true-national radio options is a travesty in this country, especially when there are only two options for nationally available music and they both have quite a narrow appeal.
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I actually agree with that - BBC R2 type station would be miles better , but we have to keep our feet on the ground and realise the ABC will never launch a R2 format station.
I think Double J on FM would rate much higher than RN, even though it is still a niche sounded station. However, given the limited music options available to regional Australia on FM radio, Double J would be a welcome addition to the airwaves, especially in places like Wollongong, GC, Sunshine Coast, Newcastle, Central Coast, Albury, Coffs Harbour, Tamworth and other similar sized regional centres.
The ABC have all but given up on a regional DAB rollout, which is really disappointing, so making better use of FM, is the only option to provide more music formats to the regions.
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As much as I’d love to see Double J replacing RN in regional Australia, I suspect we are going to see some serious lobbying from the likes of SCA to try and stop this from occurring.
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Of course they will, but RN rating low with a diminishing audience is hardly a good use of FM spectrum in the regions. The ABC should replace it with a music format station targeting over 30s - Double J would be the best option IMO, in the absence of a regional DAB or should I say, DRM, rollout.
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Thoughts:
- Ignoring the COVID years of 2020 and 2021, ABC Radio Melbourne has been on the decline since 2013/2014. The outcome of Survey 1 2023 is not that surprising and consistent with the gradual decline. I am dubious as to whether having Charlie Pickering on Fridays will arrest or exacerbate the decline.
- The loss of Red Symons has clearly hurt the station, even taking into account the gradual reduction in ratings in 2016 and 2017. In 2017, breakfast still outrated the station by 2.9, whereas Sammy J in 2022 managed only 1.6.
- Clearly there is a link between the host and the style. Gimmicks like the sound of making a coffee for an on-air caller, can sound tedious to some after overuse. Other factors such as the daily acknowledgement of respect for elders that is announced at 5.30 (without an equivalent for anyone else), may put off some potential listeners (as listeners may conclude this station is not for me). In other words, it is not one thing, it is “the package”.
- In terms of referring to the frequency of 774 (which I believe ceased around 2017), the COVID uplift in 2020/2021 shows people can find the station, however I suspect these were mainly previous listeners. IMHO when promoting the station to new potential listeners, frequency would help. Years ago, cross promotion by ABCTV to attract new listeners would be one option, however with the decline of FTA, this is probably has diminished significantly in value. In other words, if ABC Radio Melbourne wants new listeners, it needs to promote itself to the non-converted and that will require highlighting its frequency, relevance and dollars.
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yawwwwn. If a 10 second read at 5:30 makes your clutch your pearls and think of Andrew Bolt, you’ve been listening listening to the dinosaurs at 3AW for decades.
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No it doesn’t. I usually isten to ABC Radio Melbourne and Gold104.3 3AW and Andrew Bolt are not my cuppa. But i still think it is a valid point in considering the trends on ABC Radio Melbourne’s ratings.
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A bit late to the party and haven’t regularly followed this space for a while, however I’m stunned by a lot of the changes from say 5 years ago, what’s going on in Sydney at 2GB (and I thought Jim Wilson was removed with higher) and ABC wow. While Kyle and Jackie O, unbelievable, definitely silencing those haters, regardless of what you think of the duo and show. And Gold seems to have boomed since Christian and Afternoons (along with a few other FMs during the typical working day with tradies and truckies etc), but I recall Denis Walter in the timelsot being No. 1 outright plenty of times, but overall an amazing result for AW.
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I’ve moved the discussion about ABC Radio from today to the Local Radio thread → ABC Local Radio
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