2GB - Alan Jones will be off-air at some point during the year for health reasons. Ratings will only suffer a minor blip with Hadley taking over until some shocking revelation about his past forces him off air too. 2GB then declines rapidly, with ABC Sydney the benefactor.
KIIS - Kyle & Jackie O win a clean sweep of no.1 FM breakfasts across the year. KIIS continues to do well as Sydney’s better rating hit music station.
Smooth - Continues to collect survey victories with a not-broke-don’t-fix mantra.
WSFM - Struggles to keep up with Smooth due to 2Day eating into its daytime adult market share. ARN panic and at the end of the year pull the trigger on Jonesy and Amanda and bring in another international jock that no one has heard of outside this forum.
2Day - A steady but modest rise in ratings during the day in response to the older playlist. The breakfast show will rate better than it has in the last 5 years but still nowhere near the glory days. It will remain in 2019 with SCA having nothing better to replace it with.
Triple M - Encouraged by the success of 2Day’s newfound love of the past, classic rock becomes more prominent but any gains are diluted by too much sport output.
Nova - Give up all pretences of originality and become Capital FM Sydney. Fitzy & Wippa announce they are leaving at the end of the year due to the torture of having to endure a tight playlist.
Talking Lifestyle - Get ready for a 2UE ‘relaunch’ in 2019. The output will still be crap.
I wouldn’t be overly surprised if some of DigiFizz’s predictions come true at some point (especially those for 2GB, KIIS, Smooth and WSFM), although perhaps not all of them will happen this year.
I personally think 2DayFM will continue to hover around a 3.5-4% share at breakfast for most of this year.
IMO, a 2UE relaunch (ie, the return of the old callsign & format) will only happen if MRN decides to sell the station…and somehow I can’t see any major signs of that happening just yet.
I agree Sydney City. Unless they bought 2ue for George and Paul, sign them for a contract for life. Then sell 2ue. But that conspiracy theory is a bit too far fetched.
I’ll be interested to see how WSFM goes throughout the year. I was looking at their playlist the other day and while I’m a huge fan of the 80s especially the rarer 80s they’re playing, I reckon they shouldn’t have abandoned the 70s quite so much. I also think the 90s tracks they’re playing tend towards the lame and overflogged. They could afford to get a bit more adventurous there.
Nothing wrong with putting some new hits in there either but keep playing some 70s as well.
IMO that’s where Smooth still has the edge - music from the 60s right up to now.
strong text ,]listeners from ABC RADIO Melbourne will follow Gerard Whateley tO 1116 SEN this will boost 1116 SEN’s Ratinns in Melbourne and cause ABC Melbourne RatiNgs ti fall in a big way.
I’m not sure that the moving of one person from ABC to SEN will translate to huge ratings losses for ABC. I think ABC might feel more pain though from losing Red Symons in the breakfast slot.
strong text RED SYMONS AS A GUEST O 1116 SEN SOME THURSDAYS WITH GERARD WHATELEY hence he could be signed by SEN to be part of their beakfastr show is either a co-host or a fill in
Media Spy has a thread for radio ratings predictions!
Anyway, here’s what I think the running order might be in the Sydney radio market for Survey #1:
1: 2GB 873 2: Smooth 95.3 3: ABC Radio Sydney 4: KIIS 1065
…and after that:
5: WSFM 1017 6: Nova 96.9 7: Triple J 105.7 8: Triple M 104.9 9: 2DayFM 104.1 10: ABC Classic FM 92.9 11: Radio National 576 12: 2CH 1170 13: Talking Lifestyle 954 - Low ratings for the final survey before being relaunched with a Sport format. 14: ABC NewsRadio (old brand was quietly brought back over Summer) 630 15: Sky Sports Radio 1017
At breakfast:
1: Alan Jones, 2GB 873 2: Kyle & Jackie O, KIIS 1065 3: Robbie Buck, ABC Radio Sydney 702 4: Fitzy & Wippa, Nova 96.9 5: The More Music Breakfast Show with Bogart Torelli & Glenn Daniel, Smooth 95.3 6: Jonesy & Amanda, WSFM 101.7
IMO, the results of Survey #2 will probably be more interesting as far as the Sydney market is concerned.
With Survey 2 to be released tomorrow, Tuesday 24th April how will they finish???
2GB to be number 1# as always in Sydney
3AW in Melbourne
Mix 94.5 in Perth
Will it be Nova 106.9, 97.3 or Hit 105 in Brisbane??
Mix 102.3 in Adelaide
It probably goes without saying that 2GB will most likely always be the #1 station on Sydney AM and radio overall for as long as they have Alan Jones & Ray Hadley!
As far as the Sydney FM stations go, KIIS & WSFM will probably be the most popular. #1 & #2 FM spots could go either way, but IMO it seems likely that the ARN stations will do well in Sydney due to their breakfast shows and other factors like the heavy promotion at Homebush over Easter.
Smooth 95.3 & Nova 96.9 will probably do OK, but rate behind the ARN stations. 2DayFM will get a slight ratings increase overall (due to a positive buzz about the music format), but continue to struggle at breakfast.
Talking Lifestyle/Macquarie Sports Radio 954 will probably rate below 2CH and even ABC Classic FM 92.9.
Talking about the buzz of 2day’s music playlist they are the least repetitive of the CHR’s. They repeat their popular hits on average every 5 hours.
KIIS are averaging 4 hours.
Nova 96.9 today are 3-3.5 hours which is a improvement for them. More changes again to their workday with Throwbacks at 9am, then fresh 10 update straight after. Throwbacks again at 12 noon and then fresh 10 update again at 3pm but with different songs at 3pm compared to the 9am fresh 10 update.
With these new changes to workdays and weekends IMO this may not be a good book for Nova 96.9 so management have got in early and made changes. I could be completely wrong though.
Some thoughts for Melbourne and some may even be right (I forgot to check with Sharina on TLS before her show ended):
SCA
Fox - up across the board. Seems to be more radios at work tuning into the Fox than before
Triple M - up across the board - both footy and Kennedy/Molloy being drivers
Govt
ABC 774 - (hopefully) down for the wannabe “lite” Brekky. Dayparts to hold.
Triple J - small drop.
RN/ABCFM/3PB - Small increase for RN Brekky, from ex ABC774 listeners who don’t like the ads on 3AW
Macquarie
3AW - still no 1. Basically stable.
MSR/TL1278 - too early for MSR to do anything meaningful
CrocMedia
SEN - small increase due to footy season starting, but probably underwhelming
CR1377 - please join the ratings
ARN
Kiis - drop with insufficient cut through
Gold - generally drops with the footy (SEN and Triple M offset)
NovaEnt
Smooth - steady as she goes
Nova100 - up in brekky and down in dayparts with the audience rejecting the lights out at 9am approach
