Metro Radio Ratings: Survey 2, 2020

I’m one of them and people I know who listen to Nova have been telling me they’re sick of hearing the dozen artists in high rotation on Nova. Just ridiculous when you hear the same Justin Timberlake, Beyonce or Bruno Mars song played about ten times in a week.

A Throwback is good when it’s a treat. Like, a few of them a day. When they start making up 50 % of your playlist, they cease being Throwbacks and become a Hits and Memories station. I think they shouldn’t even call them Throwbacks anymore when they make up 50% of their standard playlist now.

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Totally agree with that, a throwback is a wow song that you have not heard in ages.

The Nova playlist nationally is dreadful, and the weakest out of Kiis and Hit. They deserve the ratings they got today.

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Audiences Turn to Talk Radio

The second GfK Radio Survey of 2020 has seen 2GB, 3AW, 4BC and 6PR post significant audience growth as audiences turned to talk radio during the COVID-19 crisis. The survey shows 2GB and 3AW have maintained their coveted #1 position in Sydney and Melbourne.

Across Australia the Nine Radio Network is now #1 among audience 40+ following big increases in the time audiences spend listening.

In Sydney and Melbourne, 2GB and 3AW continue to dominate, retaining their #1 market positions overall and with big audience increases in all key programs.

“Our news and talk teams have a key role to play at times like this,” said Greg Byrnes, Nine Radio’s Head of Content. “Today’s result is a clear acknowledgement that our listeners turn to us as a trusted source of information at a time like this. Over recent weeks we have seen an unprecedented number of listener calls and emails across 2GB, 3AW, 4BC and 6PR.

“These figures show that we have attracted many new listeners who have recognised the influence of talk radio’s open line and the importance of fast and reliable news and information.”

The results around the country are:

2GB 873 remains the clear leader in Sydney – #1 (AM and FM) across Breakfast, Mornings, Afternoons, Drive, Evenings, Overnights and Weekends – recording its 127th consecutive survey win with an audience share of 14.8% up 1.6 points.

• The Alan Jones Breakfast Show continues to dominate the Breakfast timeslot – #1 with an audience share of 17.9%, up 3.1 points. This represents Alan’s 226th survey win.
• The Ray Hadley Morning Show is a clear #1, recording a jump in audience of 1.3 points to a share of 18.8%. This is Ray’s 127th consecutive win.
• Afternoons with Deb Knight has shot to #1, with an audience share of 11.7% (up 2.3 points) after debuting in the timeslot earlier this year.
• Ben Fordham Live is #1 in the competitive Drive slot, with an 11.4% audience share, up 0.4 points.
• Nights with John Stanley a clear #1 with an audience 22.8% (up 3.6 points), 12.8 points clear of the nearest rival.
• Chris Smith’s weekend program has proved successful with the station’s Saturday / Sunday line up – a clear #1 overall with 13.8%.
Networked programs Wide World of Sports with Mark Levy (2GB, 4BC) and Money News program with Brooke Corte (2GB, 3AW, 4BC) continued to perform strongly in the early evenings.

3AW 693 lifts its audience while retaining its #1 position as Melbourne’s most listened to radio station (AM and FM) with an audience share of 13.9% up 0.6 points

• 3AW Breakfast with Ross Stevenson and John Burns is celebrating 147 consecutive surveys and a total of 218 wins as Melbourne’s #1 Breakfast show. Ross and John dominate Melbourne radio with an audience share of 17.39%, up 1.5 points on Survey one.
• Neil Mitchell retains his long-held #1 position. Neil is the favourite destination in Melbourne as the trusted source for news, talk and current affairs. His share of 15.4% up 0.4 puts him well ahead of all competitors.
• Dee Dee Dunleavy’s Afternoons show grew in its timeslot to record an impressive 11.2% share up 0.2 points.
• Tom Elliott remains #1 in Melbourne Drive with a share of 13.1% up 0.6 points in the highly competitive timeslot.
• Denis Walter’s Evenings program has surged since its debut at the beginning of the year and is #1 in this ratings survey with Melbourne Nights recording a share of 18.3% an increase of 2.6 points

4BC 1116 Brisbane – Audience surges as Brisbane turns to talk radio

• News Talk 4BC 1116 has seen a solid lift and achieved an audience share of 7.6% up 0.9 among all people 10+.
• The Alan Jones Breakfast Show lifted significantly with an 10.7% share in Brisbane up 1.7 points.
• The Ray Hadley Morning Show remains the #1 Talk Morning Show with a 9.6% share up 1.4 points.
• Afternoons with Deb Knight has grown its audience share for a second survey recording an 8% share up 1 point.
• Ben Fordham Live performed solidly in the competitive Drive slot with a 5.3% audience share up 0.6 points.
• Nights with John Stanley is continuing to resonate with Brisbane audiences, achieving an 8.1% share of the audience.

6PR 882 Perth – lifts across all timeslots with big increases for Breakfast and Mornings

• News Talk 6PR 882 has had a strong survey 2 with an audience share of 7.5% up 1.2 points.
• Breakfast with Steve Mills and Basil Zempilas saw a lift of 0.9 points recording an audience share of 9.3%.
• Mornings with Gareth Parker also surged recording an audience share of 8% in its timeslot up 1.9 points on the last survey.
• Afternoons with Simon Beaumont recorded a share of 7% up 0.9 points.
• Drive with Oliver Peterson had a share of 6.4% up 0.5 points on the last survey.

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Personally, I think the Triple M Metro’s should be playing more 00’s to Now Rock like 3 Doors Down, Seether, Five Finger Death Punch and Breaking Benjamin mixed in with their 70’s to 90’s rock and chuck in a few B side tracks. Last time I was listening the newer music that they were playing was from old washed up artist like Bon Jovi and Pearl Jam. Don’t get me wrong, I love Bon Jovi and Pearl Jam older stuff but their new music sucks.

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Can’t really say that I’m massively surprised with any of the results for Sydney.

With that absolutely appalling performance of the AM music stations, I personally wouldn’t be overly surprised if they’re sold to narrowcasters or closed down entirely sometime within the next few years. Although it’s probably been obvious for some time now, it’s clear that listeners expect music on FM and talkback on AM with 2CH only really keeping its head above water thanks to the 65+ demographic.

As for the Nine music stations…

Agreed. The same can be said about 2CH, although whether or not they’d be able to afford spending money on advertising (unlike Nine who could probably get free or at least cheap advertising for 2UE, Magic 1278 and 4BH across their own TV network) is another story.

I’d probably also say that the Nine music stations really need some announcers and ads (even if just bonus spots from the talk stations) to make them sound like more than basically an automated stream of music with sweeper IDs and hourly news. Say what you will about Smooth, WSFM and 2CH but at least they sound like “proper” radio stations during key timeslots unlike 2UE - those who want music and nothing else won’t have a major terrestrial radio station as their top choice!

I’ve often wondered about the same thing - my guess is that The Edge gets most of its ratings from 96.1FM especially since that signal seems to be reasonable (certainly moreso than the Lithgow station relays) across much of the metropolitan area.

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But what do the relay stations have to do with digital ratings though?

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Nova is dying around the country according to these books.

SCA should be pleased especially with the Brisbane & Perth results (mix94.5 back on top).

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Isn’t this ratings survey the last for the year?

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For now, yes.

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Novas music is dreadful and regularly mocked by KTM so they know it sucks. If only the execs realised it.

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What’s interesting to note is that in the 9am-12pm weekday slot in Sydney, and this has happened a few times before, 2Day & JJJ rated higher than Nova. In the 12-4pm weekday slot, Nova was only 1.1% ahead of 2Day & 0.6% ahead of JJJ.

In Melbourne, Nova was on par with KIIS in the 9am-12pm weekday slot & was beaten by both JJJ & 3MMM. And in Brisbane, on the same timeslot, Nova rated lower than AM music station 4KQ! :open_mouth:

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Re: KTM and mocking the music, I know Fitzy & Wippa have done this in the past as well.

Nova should realise there is a fine line between their talent taking the p*ss & actually apologising to listeners for the repetitive music format.

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They do both. They’re apologising for the repetitive playlist and taking the piss out of the music programmers who do it.

I’ve noticed Fitzy has been adding his comments a lot lately when announces or back announces a Fresh Hit by saying “This is a great song” or “I really like this song at the moment”.

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The Edge gets out across Sydney from Wentworth Falls very well. It is only the far eastern Suburbs and northern beaches where it is very weak.
My guess is 80% of the digital ratings For the Edge is from listening on fm. It should be included in the GFK fm rating like it is in the Wollongong ratings.

Re Lithgow relays, they struggle down the mountains past Woodford but can be received quite well in the Hills District. They have minimal audience and can be off air for days without any listener complaints.

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Wasn’t Irene Hulme appointed to fix the music across the Nova network??

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Well she’s overseen the new fresh music and throwbacks which is just a clone of Hit Metro. So not helpful so far.

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I would agree with that, but the Hit Network stations had a much wider playlist. particularly the Regional Hit stations.
Whereas Nova repeat the same throwbacks daily.
She also brought across the one playlist for all markets approach which is very SCA.

Not helpful so far, the stations are sounding worse then what they did last year IMO, and this is what the ratings nationally are showing.

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Not sure how they don’t understand their own market difference. They should and have always been until recently the ‘underdog’ and need to embrace that mentality again. You can be underdog and be #1, as they have been, but it’s the feeling, marketing and sound of the station.

It sounds so generic and just gets lost in the mix with Hit and KIIS now. Plus the one sound fits all markets doesn’t work, especially outside of Sydney and Melbourne. Look at breakfast even in Melbourne and Sydney, two totally different shows, but both work. KTM is an awesome show but has never been a Melbourne powerhouse. They don’t seem to know their brand very well, it’s been so watered down with the rubbish ads featuring chroma keyed musicians, it just looks like an old 2day FM ad.

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Or even 101.1 Logan

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Formats are way too different for it to be sharing too much of an audience.

This is one of the key reasons as to why Mix 94.5 in Perth has been #1 so often since the 90’s I’d suggest much of its audience drop in recent years has been workplaces moving to music streaming away from FM radio.

SCA is too obsessed with TripleM targeting a very specific demographic (read: male bogans) to look at the bigger picture of a potential larger overall audience share if they tweaked the format even a little.

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