Triple M’s Hot Breakfast in Melbourne have been using the tag line “Melbourne’s number 1 FM breakfast show” for a while now despite also losing a survey last year to Fox’s breakfast show.
I wonder what Fifi, Dave and Fev upstairs at South Melbourne think about this now.
Yes even the name Talking Lifestyle is ridiculous.
They need to look at the individual markets in Brisbane and Melbourne and identify the gaps!
In Brisbane it’s Smooth. In Melbourne it’s oldies/classic hits.
Simples!
Didn’t the Hot Breakfast win the last survey?
Yes, they did.
Maybe Talking Lifestyle should drop off the ratings. Would be interesting to see where 2sm is in Sydney. Wish it was compulsory.
Just when you think that Smooth 95.3 has reached it’s ratings peak, they manage to get just 0.1% behind longtime ratings leader 2GB. Survey 4 could be a very interesting one here in Sydney!
As for Talking Lifestyle, surely the station won’t last much more than another six months in it’s current format? I’m personally willing to predict that all three stations will have format changes or drop out of ratings surveys entirely by Early 2018, although the damage (possibly to the point that 954/1278/882 will never recover) has already been done IMO.
When I last listened to ABC Radio Sydney in the evenings during May, I got the impression that Josh Zepps was filling in for Chris Bath on the Evening program for a while.
In any case, I agree. Seven News Sydney surely must be regretting letting Chris Bath go?
If they participated in ratings surveys, I’d imagine that the “regional station broadcasting to a major capital city” that is 2SM might get OK-ish numbers for Lawsie (but still well behind Ray Hadley, etc.) but dire numbers in other timeslots which would probably make the ratings of 2DayFM and Talking Lifestyle look good.
This is from the Macquarie radio ratings press release. They are delusional.
The cumulative audience over the week for Melbourne is 47,000, trailing ABCFM on 173,000. Brisbane has a cume of 55,000, with ABCFM on 80,000. Tragic.
If this continues surely they have to turn the lights out at Talking Lifestyle. Those ratings are horrible, and it’s not just one city. A 24-hour automated music station would double their ratings overnight. And surely that won’t cost the earth. Then they can actually figure out what to do with the licences
Meanwhile up here Nova is king again, but aside from that there’s little movement. MMM drops a touch but 97.3 doesn’t look like catching it. And I know we’ve said it here many times before, but one can only imagine how 4KQ would rate in Brisbane if listeners didn’t have to hit the AM button to find it
Yes a fully automated Easy 882 with a Smooth format would triple their audience in Brisbane overnight and surely cost very little.
I am quite blown away by the ratings of Melbourne’s Talking Lifestyle.
Zero percent of the under 40’s tune to the station. Zero. Nada. None. Zilch.
And there’s a whole 0.1% of 40- 54 year olds who listen to the station.
Never mind, I am sure the sales department can sell ads to the whopping 0.4% of 54 - 65 year olds who are enjoying the station.
2DayFM has problems. The breakfast is not terribly funny nor entertaining. But it has been this way for the last four incarnations. Does anyone at SCA listen to the breakfast show? Em and Co. might work if they let Em be herself and ditched the laugh track and overproduced “hilarity”. This has also been the issue with:
But there other issue is the music. One moment it’s Hits. Then it’s Old School. Then it’s R&B. It’s confusing.
I love the Old School Weekends but turn off for the R&B Fridays. Other people are the opposite.
At the moment their logo is a big fat “H” for Hits. But they play Hits, Old School and R&B. It may work in Melbourne but it’s not working in the Harbour City. The fact the Hamish and Andy are now the No.7 FM in drive (behind even JJJ) speaks volumes.
Maybe the H stands for Halfhearted. Pick a music genre 2DayFM - please - I am begging you.
As for 954AM. This is a city of over 4 million. We have room for more than two successful AM stations (2GB and 702). In the 80s 2KY, 2UE, 2GB and 2BL were able to coexist. I am not sure what the answer is but it’s not to try and imitate 2GB or 702. And it’s not this all-ad party that is going to air at the moment. I have heard one hour shows on wine, pest control and superannuation recently. Dead set. Seriously? I no longer listen to John and Garry at breakfast as the rest of the station is so bad I just forget to tune to 954.
The unusual thing is the rebirth of 2UE to one long ad is that it has not favoured former arch-rival 2GB, which may soon lose its No.1 crown to smooth. 2GB have effectively killed off their neighbour to the right but the listeners are not moving south to 873.
That’s a very good point. Killing off 2UE hasn’t helped 2GB, and wasn’t that the point of it all?
That Talking Lifestyle format is a complete joke. As you say it sounds like an endless advertisement and hour long shows about the most banal topics. SCA have problems with Triple M too. Lowest rating FM in Brisbane and Melbourne, and beaten by Triple J in Sydney. In Brisbane and Adelaide they’re only a whisker in front of AM classic hits stations. They’ll spin it of course as being great for the advertiser and “core” demos, but the truth is they’re rating half of what Smooth is in Sydney.
You’re right about 2Day as well.
In some ways, it’s not surprising that Smooth has pulled away from its FM competitors in the latest survey. It has no direct competition, WS and CH providing the closest in terms of music.
Unfortunately, I can’t see SCA reformatting either 2DAY or 2MMM to take on Smooth. SCA will want to ensure the country’s largest city has a HIT and MMM station in its national network, as well as the other 4 mainland state capitals. It wouldn’t be a good look for them to have a national network of 40+ stations for HIT and MMM but not one in Sydney.
The only capital city station that really seems to be doing well for SCA is FOX. However, if they were to start fsiling, SCA may well be forced to rethink it’s national strategy eg. have the capital city stations run independently of the regionals, which should allow 2DAY or 2MMM to take on Smooth.
The same applies with NOVA although on a smaller scale.
The first full AFL radio ratings for Melbourne were also released yesterday. According to the Herald Sun, on Friday nights Triple M won the pre-match before 3AW catching up throughout the call as the evening progressed. On Saturday afternoons 3AW won pre-match but Triple M won the call. 3AW won Saturday nights and Sundays.
Are the full AFL ratings published anywhere? The Herald Sun article by Scott Gullun only had a few figures that I saw.