Usually it’s really good. I think bad editorial decision. As good as some things are “viral” on the socials it doesn’t always translate well to radio and AW’s older audience. I just find it bizarre that they are prioritising the cricket plague over bushfires when this is peoples livelihoods and lives at risk.
Makes me worry in the event of coverage on drive if there was more serious fires closer to the metropolitan area.
Comes back to the same issue that the pace of the show is snails pace and not as fast as it was previously and covering issues that matter as apposed to making it a “this is our top story” and beating a dead horse about lack of urgency topics.
Nine Radio is off to a flyer in 2024 with live streaming of 2GB, 3AW, 4BC and 6PR up 25% year on year. The always live and local content strategy is setting the benchmark for listenership across the country.
January figures for Nine Radio, verified by Triton, show huge spikes in both session starts and listening hours, compared with the same time last year.
SESSION STARTS
TOTAL LISTENING HOURS
11.082M+25% YoY
11.475M+24% YoY
January highlights include:
The fresh new 3AW lineup has helped boost the station’s live streaming growth 26% YoY, with Mornings with Tom Elliott +30% YoY, Afternoons with Tony Moclair +38% and Drive with Jacqui Felgate +26% YoY.
New 2GB Afternoons presenter Michael McLaren also grew live streaming audiences +52%, and Money News with Deb Knight increased a staggering +77% YoY.
The key Breakfast and Mornings shifts increased across the network, with 2GB’s Ben Fordham Live +28% YoY, the Ray Hadley Morning Show +31% YoY, and 3AW’s Breakfast with Ross and Russ +21% YoY.
Nine Radio Head of Content, Greg Byrnes, said: “This surge in streaming sets up another dominant year of talk radio and reinforces the strategy behind the content and line up changes across the country.
“Last year’s Radio360 data showed Nine’s talk stations absolutely dominate the live audio streaming market and these figures demonstrate that even more Aussies are engaging with our live and local content through a connected device in 2024.”
Nine’s Director of Sales, Total Audio, Ashley Earnshaw, said: “There has never been a better time for advertisers to drive more impactful campaigns through a Total Audio approach with Nine.
“With audiences continuing to increase in Nine’s live audio streaming environment, we have more opportunity than ever before to harness our premium data segmentation with Nine Tribes, which ultimately leads to more effective solutions for brands.”
Source: Triton Streaming Metrics, January 1-31 2024, Session Starts, Total Listening Hours (TLH), Nine – 2GB, 3AW, 4BC, 6PR Unless otherwise specified.
I thought it was a good idea at first for 4BC to try something different at Breakfast. Maybe they should move to 4BH? Where they probably should have been in the first place.
On my regular visits to Brisbane I just can’t believe the rubbish they deal up on 4BC breakfast and it takes 3 of them to do it! and when there is nothing to talk about they start playing music!, unbelievable.
The blame for the fiasco at 4BC clearly lays with Greg Byrnes knee-jerk ‘let’s buy an audience’ decision which is a fools paradise. If Greg had thought more than 10 seconds about it, he perhaps would’ve noted it’s desperately rare for an audience to follow presenters en masse to another station.
There’s only one broadcaster who did it successfully, three times - John Laws. From 2UW to 2UE, Then 2UE to 2GB, 2GB back to 2UE - all while carrying the majority of his audience. It was the most extraordinary feat and will never be repeated.
Alan Jones also carried his 2UE audience once to 2GB.
4BC has historically been a problem child, for many decades. However, prior to this ‘blood-rush’ decision, Breen was growing an audience in breakfast ( Survey 3/22 breakfast 7.5) today 4BC breakfast and the station overall are bleeding listeners. Survey 8/23 4BC breakfast 6.4, behind 4BH.
Their only claim to fame, 4BC is number 2, 65+ behind 4BH.
So, 4BH with a tiny budget, no studios, but clever, evolving programming has won the majority of the 4KQ audience.
4BC lost Breen, lost audience and lost credibility. If changes are not made, the drift will continue. Time for Byrnes to admit defeat and start again.
Brisbane’s demographics are different to Sydney and Melbourne and talk radio does not rate as well in Brisbane hence the music at Breakfast that they were trailing.
I personally think maybe limiting the talk to mornings and maybe drive similar to a regional AM ie 2GN station may help? Brisbane doesn’t have a station like SmoothFM in Melbourne and Sydney yes you can listen on DAB but it’s not available everywhere. I would make the music similar to SmoothFM but continue having the talk morning show 9am to midday but that’s it other than nights. If talk doesn’t rate and hasn’t for 20 years in Brisbane why continue with it throughout the day?
I’d suggest the time for them to move to 4BH passed a long time ago. Why would you pay the three of them to do a job that Bob Gallagher is doing very well on his own? Not really a wise investment.
Tbh I would love to do a breakfast show with Sofie Formica - she and I have great chemistry on air. We know each other well enough to take the piss but also have a good discussion on the issues of the day.
3AW has jumped on the Taylor Swift bandwagon. Jacqui Felgate’s drive show had been playing Taylor’s hits in the past couple of days. And on the 6pm news today, Tony Tardio described Alex Riddell as a “self-confessed Taylor fan” while introducing her report on fans arriving at the MCG for tonight’s concert, and finished the bulletin with “Tay-Tay time, five past six” instead of the usual “news time, five past six”.
The usual sign off is “It’s five past six, that’s the latest in news and sport”. Been like that for about four years now. It used to be “news time, five past 6” - much better.
It irks me because it’s actually four and a half minutes past the hour and that is a subtle difference, where 2GB actually says “It’s four and a half past the hour, that’s the latest in news and sport”.
i think it’s one of those old school radio customs. Back in the olden days, 3DB used to sign off its news with “Herald/Sun news time is xxx past xxx”. (referring to the then separate Herald and Sun newspapers). I never quite understood it.
