Regional Radio Ratings

Not shocking seeing as Geelong is crystal clear inside Melbourne’s broadcast areas. Bay is a mess at drive, their catch-up show is boring and has way too much useless talk. Daryl Reader mumbles and stumbles his way through shifts. They need some new blood there.

Wonder why the Melbourne stations aren’t listed individually? Brisbane stations are listed separately in the Gold Coast survey and there is clearly less overspill there.

And with over 70% listening to Melbourne stations it might be time to look at changing or even amalgamation?

I think they need to look at Brisbane/Ipswich in this respect too as I think results might even be worse for the local station vs Brisbane. Even if River 94.9 pulled 20% of Ipswich listeners 80% would be on Brisbane stations. Makes it hard for them when they can’t actively compete for Brisbane listeners.

I think to level the playing field just a little, commercial stations in Geelong and Ipswich should be allocated at least DAB spectrum in the metro market that dominates their licence area.

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The Sydney stations weren’t listed in the Gosford survey this year, though they used to be in the previous survey method some years back, yet the Sydney stations were in last years Wollongong survey results. I guess the survey company gives the results that the local stations pay for??

Grants are not kidding anyone, they should never had surveyed Geelong. This is an inevitable result.

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the commercial radio players in the market of that survey have the choice to include, or not to include stations from outside of their market in the results.

In that Geelong survey, I think it’s safe to say that Grant got smashed by a few Melbourne FM stations, and the 2 AM powerhouses. No way they’d be happy with that, and being the only commercial stations in the market…I’m surprised they even released them publicly as I wouldn’t think they would be committed to.

Wahahhahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahha…

Oh, I have waited for years to see just how bad Bay and K-Rock do, and that’s worse than I expected, though K-Rock closer to Bay than I would have thought.

Not even beating ABC! I wonder if that helps or hurts the case for Geelong finally getting local radio?

Even if they don’t want to list them in the survey, they absolutely need to accept that people can receive the Melbourne stations and that they need to find a niche other than localism.

Nice to finally see the data. I’d doubt much of the other listening is Pulse/96three rather than the Melbourne stations.

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…and can the same possibly be said about the Campbelltown/Macarthur commercial radio market, South West of Sydney?

I strongly doubt that the percentage of those who listen to C91.3 (AKA, i98 North) over major Sydney stations would be particularly high, nor do I think that the radio listening habits of Macarthur residents is particularly different from that of the wider Sydney metropolitan area.

In areas like the Gold Coast, NSW Central Coast and maybe even Katoomba where there’s a feeling of more separation/independence from the major capital city, you can definitely justify local commercial radio stations. But in regions like Geelong, Ipswich and Campbelltown? I’m not so sure.

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I agree. I would extend that to C91.3 against the Sydney stations, in which they’re musically not much different to KIIS, Nova, 2DAY & The Edge. I would imagine if Campbelltown was to be surveyed, I don’t think C91.3 would get anywhere more than 10% audience share overall, considering that I hardly come across a business within the licence area that is tuned to the local commercial station. As for River 94.9 in Ipswich, at least they’re musically quite different to the Brisbane commercial FM stations.

When you compare the figures to other similar markets that are adjacent to a major metro market, KRock/Bay can only manage a combine share of 18.5%, which is less than what Sea FM on the Central Coast gets, which is a 19.9% share & much less than i98 in Wollongong, which got a 25.1% share in last year’s survey.

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I would certainly consider Geelong to be a unique media market - the Geelong Cats alone created an appetite for local media.

K-Rock used to leverage that well, a rock and sport format, skewing male and older, but now you have a bad CHR station, while still having the football coverage - something that seems totally out of place now.

They usually managed to find a space away from Triple M, but now they go right up against Fox, Nova and Kiis.

I never listened much to Bay, so don’t know what they did wrong to be as behind as they are.

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You certainly have a very bogan sounding CHR station. Lots of hip hop rubbish not heard elsewhere. Lots of the bogan female hairdresser targeted music - you know the types with tatts, personalised numberplates and Playboy seat covers.

And then there’s the (technically regional) The Edge…

Localism isn’t enough to seperate yourself when you have strong crossover signal from three other stations of the same format.

When you don’t have the money to compete on the same level, I think you gotta do something else.

Personally I think K-Rock had it kinda right - they used to be like a modern Triple M. When Triple M were busy playing 80s and 90s almost exclusively, K-Rock were playing a lot of new rock and rock-pop as well as the ‘classics’. Enough, IMO to differentiate themselves - and a self-deprecating rock station that admits it doesn’t have lots of money and broadcasts the footy on the weekends works really well IMO. Especially for the market.

When you make it a CHR format, you have to give people a reason to switch from Nova, Fox, Triple J, and/or KIIS - and I don’t think there’s the money in the market to do so.

In terms of Bay - I think they have the right philosophy but the execution is lacking.
Bay needs some smart programmers to walk the line between lifestyle & news and it should be able to compete with the ABC I would think.

C91.3 was a bit like that too in its early days of 2001-04, in which they had a music format that could be described as mainly rock-based with a bit of pop, which was more broader than Triple M in Sydney, in which they had more of an active rock format due to the arrival of Nova. And yes, like with K-Rock, C91.3 is now basically a CHR station with the odd 80s/90s track thrown in.

Speaking of which, here’s an old 2002 article from Radioinfo about the Campbelltown radio ratings, which was conducted less than a year after C91.3 first went to air. It revealed that C91.3 scored a 12.3% share overall, just behind WSFM on 13.1%, whilst they were #1 in the 25-39s with 20.7%, ahead of Triple M who scored 16.6% in that demographic.

Wow, late to this but as much as I’m not surprised the locals aren’t dominating, I’m stunned at the extent to which they failed. With such a high ‘others’ percentage it wouldn’t surprise me if individual Melbourne commercial stations rated higher in Geelong than the locals do. That is shameful

Biased I may be, but I agree with the other comments that K-Rock needs to carve out a niche like it has done in years gone by. 3GL in the 80s had the niche of being the ‘smoother’ choice than the edgier stations like 3XY from Melbourne. K-Rock in the 90s managed to compete as a rock station with wider appeal than the equivalent Triple M from Melbourne had. Now they’re losing to Bay FM (who themselves are hardly setting the world on fire), which is a terrible result

I always thought Geelong, being in the shadow of the Melbourne stations, needed to be a bit different to the standard two-station market that Grants typically run. They should make K-Rock a rock-flavoured (but not exclusively guitars) station targeting the younger males and working in with the football coverage, and let Bay target the older females who might be looking for a station like what Mix 101.1 used to be, but feel a bit daggy listening to 91.5. They simply must have a point of difference from the Melbourne stations though, because being a poor imitation of Fox/Nova/Kiis just isn’t going to cut it when those stations boom into town like locals

Wollongong survey out this morning

The Wollongong radio ratings can be found in a separate thread.

Meanwhile, Bunbury also has their ratings released: http://radioitsalovething.com.au/RIALT/media/RIALT/PDF/BUNBURY-XTRA-INSIGHTS-PUBLIC-SURVEY-RESULT.PDF

Hot FM is #1 with 30.8%, followed by ABC South West with 17.5%, JJJ with 14% & RadioWest with 13.4%. Spirit Radio could only manage a 6.1% share.

In the demographics, Hot FM wins the under-55s, whilst ABC South West wins the 55+.

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Triple J outrates heritage station 6TZ RadioWest !!

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Are Spirit and RadioWest on AM or FM in Bunbury? What are their formats as I don’t know much about WA regional radio.

Both are on AM.

Spirit is 621am, RadioWest is 963am.

Spirit is the 3rd licence in that area, and had to be on AM, as when it was granted, GWN Television was using VHF 3 (88-92 MHz) and ABC TV was using VHF 5 (102-108 MHz).

Not sure about Spirits format, but RadioWest I believe is now using the same Classic Hits format that some of the SCA Triple M Network stations in the east use - I know 2MC FM Port Macquarie is one of those.

I think Spirit has a more modern AC format compared to RadioWest’s Classic Hits format. Although it’s quite ironic that the most competitive demographic for RadioWest vs Spirit is in the 55-64s, where there’s only 0.7% difference between the two, as well as the fact that RadioWest is way ahead of Spirit in the 40-54s.

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