Ratings Predictions

Radio, Print, and Online Metro Radio Ratings
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Not really rating-related, but seeing the title of this thread made me write my Canberra predictions:

  1. 2CC
  2. Hit 104.7 Canberra
  3. Mix 106.3
  4. 2CA
  5. ABC 666
  6. Triple J
  7. 2XX
  8. Raw FM
  9. ArtSound
  10. 1WAY
  11. 1RPH
  12. CMS
  13. All other SBS/ABC stations
  14. Valley FM
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rather optimistic I must say

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More than half the stations you mentioned (SBS aren’t there, neither are any community stations) aren’t even included in GfK’s surveys of the Canberra radio market.

Personally I’m expecting very little, if any changes with the Canberra radio ratings on Wednesday. Mix 106.3, Hit 104.7 and ABC Canberra will probably be the top three with 2CC & 2CA last and second last respectively.

Agreed. With the ratings of 2CC as they have been in recent years, I actually think the station would be little more than a localised relay of 2GB (and now, 4BC!) if they weren’t obliged to produce a minimum amount of local content.

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Not sure what’s funnier here - 2CC at number 1, or Raw FM over ABC Classic

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The results of Survey #1 2020 will be released tomorrow and with that, here’s my prediction for Sydney’s first radio ratings survey of the decade:

1: 2GB 873 - With bushfires and coronavirus there certainly hasn’t been a shortage of talkback discussion topics recently, so I’d be very surprised if they didn’t receive even just a slight ratings increase
2: Smooth 95.3 - The recent branding relaunch/refresh shouldn’t do them any harm.
3: ABC Radio Sydney 702 - See commentary about 2GB, although I think their Evenings program will fall in the ratings now Chris Bath has left the ABC to seemingly focus on her 10 News First commitments.
4: KIIS 1065

…and after that:

5: WSFM 101.7 - I’d expect them to drop slightly as a result of the Smooth refresh and to a lesser extent, the rebooted 2UE.
6: Nova 96.9
7: Triple J 105.7 - They’ll probably increase slightly due to Survey #1 being the aftermath of the Hottest 100.
8: Triple M 104.9
9: 2DayFM 104.1
10: 2CH 1170 (and in stereo on DAB) - Sydney Tonight Live with Chris Kearns may increase slightly as a result of the ABC Local Radio changes, but I’m expecting all other shifts to fall. Will continue to underperform if they don’t increase their external promotion, especially if Nine decides to eventually do a promotional campaign for 2UE across their wider media network.
11: ABC Classic FM 92.9
12: Radio National 576
13: Macquarie Sports Radio 2UE 954 - in Survey #2, I think the revived 2UE as a music station will be outrating all ABC stations (aside from Local Radio & Triple J, of course). By Survey #4, it’s possible that 2CH could have some things to be worried about!
14: ABC NewsRadio 630
15: Sky Sports Radio 1017

At breakfast:

1: Alan Jones, 2GB 873
2: Robbie Buck & Wendy Harmer, ABC Radio Sydney 702
3: Kyle & Jackie O, KIIS 1065
4: The More Music Breakfast Show with Bogart Torelli & Glenn Daniel, Smooth 95.3
5: Jonesy & Amanda, WSFM 101.7
6: Fitzy & Wippa, Nova 96.9

Can’t see Moonman on Triple M, Tim Webster (who I wouldn’t be overly surprised to hear on 2UE again, once his current contract expires) on 2CH or Music For Breakfast on either 2DayFM or 2UE making much of an impact.

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I predict 4BH/2UE/Magic will do better than MSR. Possibly not a huge improvement due to no promotion and teething issues but an improvement nonetheless.

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Tomorrow, we’ll be looking at the results of a radio ratings survey for the first time since April.

So much has changed during the last five months, it feels like at least twice that! Most notably, during the break we saw (or more to the point, heard) Joel Creasy replacing Marty Sheargold on Nova drive and departure of Alan Jones from 2GB - making this perhaps the most anticipated Sydney radio ratings survey release since Survey #3 2002.

With all of this in mind, here are my predictions for the market:

1: 2GB 873 - hanging onto top spot largely thanks to Ray Hadley and NRL coverage, but with a reduced majority due to the departure of Alan Jones.
2: ABC Radio Sydney - with an increased share (especially at breakfast) due to AJ’s departure and pandemic coverage, among other factors.
3: Smooth 95.3 - of the music stations, I think this is the place people are most likely turn to for a break from virus talk!
4: KIIS 1065

…and after that:

5: WSFM 101.7
6: Nova 96.9
7: Triple J 105.7
8: Triple M 104.9 - can’t see the confusing “Triple M or Life Education?” TVCs with the CGI giraffe jamming to Whitesnake making much of an impact.
9: 2DayFM 104.1
10: ABC Classic FM 92.9
11: 2CH 1170 - with the AM frequency soon to become sport and the DAB+ multiplex change debacle (think 2CH’s stream even redirected to 2UE’s online for a while), I can’t see them increasing in the ratings.
12: Radio National 576
13: 2UE 954 - might receive a ratings boost with 2CH soon to disappear from AM 1170, but hardly anything spectacular. 2UE would likely perform better with external promotion and the poaching of some 2CH announcers.
14: ABC NewsRadio 630
15: Sky Sports Radio 1017

At breakfast:

1: Robbie Buck & Wendy Harmer, ABC Radio Sydney
2: Kyle & Jackie O, KIIS 1065
3: Ben Fordham Live, 2GB 873
4: The More Music Breakfast Show with Bogart Torelli & Glenn Daniel, Smooth 95.3
5: Jonesy & Amanda, WSFM 101.7
6: Fitzy & Wippa, Nova 96.9

While I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of an AJ-less 2GB breakfast falling to as low as 6th behind the considerably more established competition (if that were to happen, I’d imagine Ben would be replaced with Chris Smith quite quickly), I’ll be nice and put what I reckon is the best case scenario for Ben Fordham here.

Can’t see much improvement in the ratings for 2DayFM’s “Music For Breakfast” program which if recent reports are anything to go by, is likely to soon be scrapped in favour of a return to a personality-based brekky show on 104.1FM Sydney.

Later in the day, I’d probably expect Jim Wilson to receive higher ratings on 2GB drive than Ben Fordham did in the same timeslot but at the same time, I’m expecting one of the FM stations to be #1 at drive.

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Brisbane:
I expect 4BC to make a decent gain in Brisbane, as well as the ABC for reasons stated above.
B105 to be number 1. Nova and Triple M to be the losers.

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Yes I wouldn’t be surprised to see B105 in number 1 position. I’ll be curious to see if the reborn 4BH has any impact on 4KQ. I doubt it. Wouldn’t be surprised to see 97.3 slide a bit, it’s a shambles of a station in my opinion with lame music and a split personality.

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I wouldn’t be surprised if Nova 106.9 drops more from the changes in music format to Sydney’s playlist than the lack of local presenters. During the first round of shared announcing, DC fit a lot more during his fill-in shifts than Greg Burns or Troy Ellis ever did. Seemed weird that they never kept him there. At least being stuck in Europe means I don’t have to listen my once-favourite station gone down the gurgler!

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SEN 1170 0.3 rating. :slight_smile:

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I reckon the first full survey for SEN 1170 will be around 0.5% and potentially “Withdrawn from Survey” shortly after that.

Probably won’t happen but I personally hope we’ll see (or more to the point, hear) 2CH revived on 1170AM by a new station owner in a couple of years from now. Hey, it happened to 1377AM Melbourne and 1323AM Adelaide! :slight_smile:

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I am not sure of the history of Adelaide but Sydney doesn’t have an SEN presence where 1377 AM was a second licence they purchased. Having two licences is overkill for sport.

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After an extraordinary year, results of the final radio ratings survey for 2020 will be released tomorrow.

But before we look at them, here are my predictions for Sydney…

*2GB will remain the #1 station on AM and overall, with ABC Radio Sydney a reasonably close 2nd.
*Smooth 95.3 will again remain the #1 FM station and may receive a slight increase in ratings due to 2CH’s departure from the AM band. Followed closely behind will be KIIS 1065 (with K&JO the #1 brekky show) then WSFM who I also think are likely to benefit somewhat from the recent changes to 1170AM.
*Nova, Triple M and Triple J will be around their usual middle of the list positions.
*ABC Classic 92.9 will receive more listeners at breakfast than 2DayFM.
*Despite their main competition recently moving to DAB+ with their AM service becoming a sports station, 2UE won’t experience a massive increase in ratings if only due to a lack of external advertising.

…and to compliment the TV ratings predictions for next year made elsewhere on this forum, some general Sydney radio ratings predictions for 2021:

*2GB will remain Sydney’s #1 station on AM & overall, although I’d probably expect their breakfast ratings to gradually decline with challenges by ABC Sydney and/or KIIS by the end of the year.
*Smooth 95.3 will continue doing what it’s been doing quite successfully for some time now.
*Kyle & Jackie O will remain the King and Queen of the Sydney FM breakfast ratings.
*WSFM to continue rating OK-ish, maybe outrating Smooth in a survey or two.
*Nova, Triple M and Triple J to remain somewhere around their usual middle of the list positions.
*2DayFM (including the new breakfast show) will probably continue to struggle in the ratings for most of the year.
*2UE to rate somewhere around 1.5%. If Nine Radio are willing to invest more in their music stations by doing some external advertising and poaching former 2CH talent, 954AM has the potential to get 3-4% but I don’t see this happening.
*SEN 1170 will be the new Macquarie Sports Radio, ratings wise and I wouldn’t even be surprised if they decided to withdraw from the surveys by mid-year!

A few more general Sydney radio predictions for next year:

*One of the longtime FM brekky duos will retire at the end of 2021.
*By November, SCA will announce that there’ll be a new 2DayFM Breakfast show in 2022.
*2SM will not return to the radio surveys. Nor will they sign up Alan Jones to be involved in the station in some way or another.
*At least half a dozen DAB+ stations will change brands/formats.
*Following a few surveys of lacklustre ratings as a digital-only station, SEN decides to close down 2CH to focus more on their sport offerings.
*One of the shock jocks will get involved in some form of major controversy which sees them taken off-air for a short time, but eventually return once the inevitable furore inevitably dies down.

Who knows if any of the above will actually happen, but I’m at least fairly confident about the predictions about 2DayFM, 2SM and DAB+ station format changes! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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With a week to go until Survey 1, 2021 and the involvement of all Melbourne commercial stations (for the first time in a long time), here’s my thoughts for Melbourne (along with 2020 Survey 8 and 1 comparisons):

On Air ID Callsign 2021 Survey 1 2020 Survey 8 2020 Survey 1
3AW 3AW 17.0 19.6 13.3
Gold 3KKZ 10.0 9.0 10.8
ABC Radio Melb 3LO 9.7 10.7 8.7
Smooth FM 3PTV 8.3 7.8 9.6
Fox 3FOX 7.7 6.7 8.4
Nova100 3MEL 6.6 5.6 8.3
Triple J 3JJJ 6.4 4.9 6.6
KIIS101.1 3TTT 5.5 4.5 6.4
Triple M 3MMM 5.2 6.2 5.5
RN 3RN 3.5 3.5 3.4
ABC Classic 3ABC 2.2 2.2 2.7
Magic 1278 3EE 2.0 1.4
SEN 3AK 1.9 2.9 1.6
3MP 3MP 1.8
RSN 927 3UZ 1.5
ABC NewsRadio 3PB 1.4 1.9 1.4
Other - 9.3 13.1 13.3
  • With Victorian COVID restrictions reducing, there will be an overall ratings trend back from talk to music… I don’t get the impression that any of the music stations is shooting the lights out, so the increase will be spread amongst them all - the question will be whether Survey 1 is close to the “new normal”. The indicator might be if the total average audience for breakfast returns to exceeding the total average audience for mornings (for Melbourne Surveys 6 through 8 in 2020, mornings were more popular than breakfast with all the COVID restrictions).
  • Magic 1278 and 3MP will benefit from Smooth’s format tweaks, however limited promotion will limit their ratings. Accordingly, the Smooth “bounce back” from the talk to music trend will not be as high as other stations
  • The Marty Sheargold Show is very different from the Hot Breakfast and will have an initial dampening effect for Triple M. I expect the breakfast rating to be lower than Triple M’s overall station rating
  • Triple J and SEN will have their usual summer jump and fall, respectively
  • RSN 927 will return pretty similar to where it left when it ceased participating in ratings in 2003
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I was going to wait until next week but seeing that Rob has already made predictions for the Melbourne market, I may as well as make mine for Sydney today.

*2GB will remain #1 on AM and overall, with ABC Radio Sydney a reasonably close second.
*KIIS 1065 will be Sydney’s new #1 FM station, due to all the hype K&JO have been generating (the “Where’s Kyle” stunt + a pretty big listener competition tying in with Ten’s The Amazing Race) during January & February.
*The tweaked Smooth 95.3 will probably go down a bit in the ratings, with WSFM the biggest beneficiary.
*Nova 96.9 will fall a bit, but remain above Triple M & Triple J around their usual middle of the list positions.
*2DayFM won’t rate much better in Survey #1 2021 than it did at the end of last year.
*2UE to pick up some former 2CH 1170AM and disgruntled Smooth listeners, any less than 2% should be a disappointment for Nine Radio IMO.
*SEN 1170 to rate lower than Sky Sports Radio and potentially, even digital-only 2CH.

At breakfast…

1: Ben Fordham Live, 2GB 873
2: Kyle & Jackie O, KIIS 1065
3: Robbie Buck & Wendy Harmer, ABC Radio Sydney
4: Jonesy & Amanda, WSFM 101.7
5: The More Music Breakfast Show with Bogart Torelli & Glenn Daniel, Smooth 95.3
6: Fitzy & Wippa, Nova 96.9.

Not expecting grand things from The Morning Crew with Hughesy, Ed & Erin on 2DayFM, the brekky show on some Regional NSW Hit stations will probably be relayed to 104.1 in the state capital by this time next year.

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3PTV.

Think you’re on the money otherwise, especially re: 3MMM. I love Marty and the show sounds great, but it’s a different beast to the Hot Breakfast and the ratings will doubtlessly demonstrate this.

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It will be an interesting survey. I’d expect 4BH/2UE/Magic to gain a little traction but how much is anyone’s guess. I think maybe 2% would be a good result in any of the three markets.

I can’t help thinking Smooth might start to trend a little downwards with their format tweaks. They really are sounding pretty ordinary lately and no longer have a point of difference.

In Brisbane I can’t see 97.3 improving too much despite heavy advertising of the breakfast show. 4KQ breakfast will keep doing well I think.

Perth will be interesting with the changes at 94.5 and 92.9. I think Nova and 96 will both do well.

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Yeah, I definitely think Nova 93.7 & 96FM will do well out of the major changes SCA made to their Perth stations at the end of last year.

Overall 2021 will probably be a good year for ARN, but with KIIS Melbourne and 97.3 Brisbane not performing as well as they could. Nova Entertainment will probably do OK, while I can see most SCA Hit & Triple M stations struggling. And of course, the Sydney/Melbourne institutions that are 2GB & 3AW should continue to dominate their respective markets this year but that just about goes without saying.

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