Nine Radio (Music)

Might be a test cart that went to air accidently. Ace could be getting ready to acquire SCA’s regional licences in WA?

When does the current lease expire?

When Nine bought the radio stations from Macquarie Radio/Fairfax 7 years ago for $275 million, there were a number of regulatory questions about Nine Entertainment’s share of media voice in the major metro markets, with its ownership of tv, newspapers and radio stations. The Ace deal solved that.

Ace Radio leased the stations for a ten year period, with six years left to run on the deal.

Four years into a deal that supposedly “solved” regulatory questions raised three years prior.

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The lease started on 14 January 2022 by the way

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And to what I see and hear, looks like ACE are going down the gurgler. When asking Google Gemini for the latest Sydney Ratings, this is what it spat out, no 2UE or 2SM in sight. What got me curious were the amount of generic ads on 2UE asking potential advertisers to come and “advertise with us”. To me anyway, quite an ominous red flag that they’re in trouble.

----------GOOGLE GEMINI RESPONSE---------

Based on the most recent data available (GfK Survey 8, 2025, released on January 20, 2026), there has been a significant shift at the top of the Sydney radio market. Smooth FM 95.3 has officially knocked the long-time leader, 2GB, off its perch to become the #1 station in Sydney.

Below are the overall rankings and audience shares for People 10+ (Mon-Sun, 5:30 am–12:00 midnight).

Sydney Radio Ratings: Survey 8 (Final 2025 Results)

Ranking Station Name Audience Share (%) Trend
1 smoothfm 95.3 13.0% +1.6
2 2GB 11.2% -2.6
3 KIIS 1065 9.5% +0.2
4 Gold 101.7 (WSFM) 9.1% +0.4
5 Nova 96.9 7.8% +0.3
6 ABC Sydney 5.5% -
7 104.9 Triple M 4.5% +0.2
8 2Day FM 3.7% -

Key Highlights & Breakdown

  • The King Ousted: After years of dominance, 2GB saw a sharp decline of 2.6 points, allowing Smooth FM to take the crown with a record-breaking 13% share. This is the first time in recent memory a music station has held the outright #1 spot in Sydney by such a margin.

  • Breakfast Battle: While 2GB lost the overall lead, Ben Fordham remains the #1 Breakfast show with a 14.9% share, followed by Kyle & Jackie O (KIIS 1065) at 12.7%.

  • The Rise of Music: Smooth FM’s Ty Frost (Mornings) and Byron Webb (Drive) both claimed #1 in their respective time slots, signaling a strong shift toward “feel-good” music formats.

  • The “Gold” Rebrand: 101.7 (formerly WSFM) saw a positive lift following its alignment with the “Gold” network branding, finishing 2025 with a solid 9.1% share.

Would you like me to look up the specific ratings for the “Breakfast” or “Drive” time slots specifically?

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Why ask for AI drivel when you can just look up the actual ratings from a reliable source? In fact there’s a thread on here with a link to the actual ratings.

AI results are prone to error and the real stuff is just as easy to find so what’s the point?

Here you go

2UE was up 0.4 last survey to a 4.1 share behind Triple M with 4.5

2SM don’t participate in the ratings.

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Refer to 4BH my friend

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AI slop is not useful analysis

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Don’t take Google Gemini too seriously:


Sydney features a wide array of radio stations across the FM, AM, and DAB+ (Digital) bands, ranging from major commercial networks to local community broadcasters.

FM Radio Stations (Standard Sydney Coverage)

Frequency Station Name Format
92.1 MHz 2MFM Muslim Community Radio Community (Multilingual)
92.9 MHz ABC Classic Classical Music
93.7 MHz Koori Radio Indigenous Community
94.5 MHz FBi Radio Youth/Independent Culture
95.3 MHz Smooth FM 95.3 Adult Contemporary
96.9 MHz Nova 96.9 Top 40/Pop
97.7 MHz SBS Radio 2 Multicultural
98.5 MHz 2000FM Multilingual Community
101.7 MHz Gold 101.7 (WSFM) Classic Hits
102.5 MHz Fine Music Sydney Classical/Jazz
103.2 MHz Hope 103.2 Christian Contemporary
104.1 MHz 2Day FM Pop/Top 40
104.9 MHz Triple M Sydney Rock
105.7 MHz Triple J Youth/Alternative
106.5 MHz KIIS 106.5 Pop/Contemporary
107.3 MHz 2SER Community/Educational

AM Radio Stations

Frequency Station Name Format
576 kHz ABC Radio National (RN) Talk/Specialist
630 kHz ABC NewsRadio News/Talk
702 kHz ABC Radio Sydney Local News/Talk
873 kHz 2GB News/Talk
954 kHz 2UE Easy Listening
1017 kHz Sky Sports Radio Racing/Sports
1107 kHz SBS Radio 1 Multicultural
1170 kHz SEN Sydney Sports
1224 kHz 2RPH Radio Reading Service
1269 kHz 2SM Talk/Hits
1539 kHz SEN Track Racing/Sports

DAB+ Digital Radio (Digital-Only or Unique Channels)

In addition to simulcasts of the AM/FM stations above, Sydney has digital-exclusive channels:

  • ABC Digital: ABC Jazz, Double J, ABC Country, triple j Unearthed, and ABC Kids listen.
  • Commercial Digital: Smooth Relax, Triple M Classic Rock, Nova 90s, 80s iHeartRadio, and Blender Beats.
  • Community Digital: Inspire Digital (Hope 103.2), 2TripleO (multicultural), and 2RPH Plus.

Would you like the live stream links or current program schedules for any of these specific stations?


AI still in its infancy…. It thinks Nova 90s is still a channel and 80s iHeartRadio is the name of Gold 80s :joy:

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Yes, and I’ve seen a LOT worse than that..

Yep, point taken. :slight_smile: just being lazy and looking for a quick response.

Breakfast with Bob Gallagher, that wouldn’t be the same guy who used to do Drive on Triple M back in early 1983? Wow, one of the finer DJs from back then still going.

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Yep that’s the same Bob, still going strong :grinning_face:

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My friend and I were discussing the concept of me asking AI for the last radio ratings, and how it seemed to have emitted 2UE from the results.

2UE’s ratings went up by 3.7% from 0.4 to 4.1, the consensus seems to be that the AI got survey 7 and 8 mixed up, hence the bad info. , I was under the assumption that as Gemini was linked to Google, that it would have just been a summarized critique of what the results on google would have been.

Easter 500 looks to be returning on 4BH, 2UE and Magic 1278.

From 8am Good Friday, we will head towards a huge #1 on Easter Monday.

Will be interesting to see if there is much/any variant in the countdown across stations, or will be the same.

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Last year had different countdowns on Magic 1278 Melbourne and 4BH Brisbane. There were 251 songs that were in both cities’ countdowns, leaving 498 songs appearing in one city’s countdown (249 each in Melbourne and Brisbane).

Of the songs which were in both cities’ countdowns, the biggest difference in rankings was “Spicks and Specks” by the Bee Gees (#495 in Melbourne, #62 in Brisbane). Only one song had the same ranking in both cities: “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles at #302.

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This is the first time 2ue has taken part of Easter top 500 though last year it was just Magic 1278 and 4bh

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Wouldn’t they be playing the same songs on all stations, as they do now, but weren’t a year ago?

Magic 1278

2ue

4bh

It looks like the Classic Hits countdown is the same on 3 stations this year by the looks of things

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Good Grief!!! One from 4BH
Facebook

If there is an obvious disconnect from your audience, this would be it!

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Oh dear :joy:

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