Great result again for Smooth!
Surprised to see Fox dropped considerably. I actually enjoy the Hits & Old School format! What happened to Fifi, Dave, Fev & Byron?
KIIS and Nova are catching up.
Not enough people in the show
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I think changing the name and increasing Byron’s involvement was a mistake - sure he’s been in radio for a long time and it well known within the industry, but he’s hardly the household name that the other 3 are.
But as I discussed above I think the main cause is Hamish and Andy’s shift only being replays for the first 10 weeks of the year. Their shift dropped 3.1 in Survey 1 and 1.4 in Survey 2 - they were only back on air for 2 of the 8 weeks covered by Survey 2. Their return was also not advertised well (if at all), nor has Fox done any major advertising all year while Nova and KIIS have both had billboards around for most of the year.
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Survey Highlights:
Sydney’s Triple M Weekends: The lowest rating AM or FM commercial radio station in Sydney - behind even 2CH and Talking Lifestyle. Behind the ABC’s 702 and JJJ.
Melbourne’s Triple M Weekends: The lowest rating commercial FM station.
I wonder how the M’s would rate on the weekend in Sydney and Melbourne if they just played rock music with hourly sports updates?
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but… everyone in Melbourne loves footy!
This bit genuinely baffles me - a fair chunk of Melbourne is covered with Chrissie, Sam & Browny billboards, while Fox is sticking with… “music and friends”. I’d hate to be losing 1% of my friends every month or so.
Oh yeah, I’d forgotten about those billboards… shows how effective they are (and this coming from a Fox listener and radio nerd)
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Does an AM station also call the AFL in Melbourne? That might explain why so few are tuned to 105.1FM.
Maybe it’s because all those obsessed with football are actually at the MCG?
It is quite an achievement for Melbourne’s Triple breakfast team. The lowest rating FM station on the weekend is able to become the No.1 FM station at 6am Monday morning. That’s a lot of people changing frequency between Sunday night and Monday morning.
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Yes, football is also on ABC, 3AW and SEN.
It’s worth pointing out though that the main season didn’t start until close to the end of the survey period.
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Yes the Triple M Melbourne breakfast show are really propping them up. How bad would it be if they didn’t have breakfast?
How long before they realise the market wants a broad-based music-focused rock station? Not the mishmash of narrow music, talkback, sport and comedy.
The weekend figures in Sydney and Melbourne should be alarming them!
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Not really. While the Sydney figure is worse, most of the commercial stations have much softer figures on the weekend compared to the weekdays.
In Melbourne’s case, advertising from footy at 5.4 is going to generate a hell of a lot more income than if they played music and got an 8.
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IMHO you’ve just explained how radio is killing itself. Total focus on short term advertising revenue over the listener will only work for so long - until all of the listeners have gone elsewhere! Then it’s game over.
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This demonstrates the lack of aptitude of agencies, media buyers and clients.
For most scenarios relating to this, to pay more for lesser share is madness.
If it’s footy audiences you want to reach, you have a fragmented, three or four station buy that still doesn’t get you the ABC audience.
Then do the footy audience have the interest and money for the product/service you want to sell? Music with a higher share might achieve that. You can be rest assured the Smooth reps would be doing all they can to quantify that line of thinking.
Let’s say the client is seduced by the #1 for men, footy/comedy/music lure. They pay the premium to cover the footy production, it’s not the correct audience and they don’t get the results.
Client doesn’t bother again or spends less in another daypart. Radio is the loser.
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And where do you draw the line? Surely 2MMM’s weekend rating of 3.9 is nowhere - not even close - to smooth’s 10.6 in terms of the cost of a 30 second ad. I don’t reckon the M’s weekend ratings are causing immense amounts of cash to flow into the station. And music sure is cheap to program.
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But you have to consider that Triple M’s football rights also flow onto their weekday revenue by giving them credibility and presenters to talk about football. The hot breakfast would not exist in its current form without the football rights nor would a number of listeners even tune in.
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