Wow, that’s the closest to a line ball I’ve seen in a while - all commercials could claim a win in at least one area.
Of the 3 commercials:
Hit #1 in Breakfast and Drive
Triple M #1 for Mornings
7HO #1 in the afternoon, evening and weekends.
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Good on 7HO for having a listener key tag, sounds like a great loyalty tactic often used in the 80’s. Still a relevant and successful idea to implement.
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Sea FM Devonport & Burnie (also owned by Grants) have a similar tactic aswell.
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Ipswich has their radio ratings released: http://www.radioalive.com.au/RA/media/General/Documents/Surveys%20for%20Regional/IPSWICH-XTRA-INSIGHTS-PUBLIC-SURVEY-RESULT.PDF?ext=.pdf
River 94.9 is the #1 station with a 26.4% share, followed by Hit 105 with 14.3%, 97.3FM with 9.6% & 4MMM with 7%.
Hit 105 is #1 in the under-25s, whilst River is #1 in the 25-64s, with ABC Radio Brisbane topping the 65+.
Interesting to see that Ipswich has listed all the Brisbane stations in the survey, whilst the Gosford, Geelong & Mandurah surveys have not even bothered to list the Sydney, Melbourne & Perth stations respectively. I’d like to see Campbelltown get surveyed one day to see how C91.3 rates against the Sydney stations. 
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Interesting that Hit105 significantly outrates Nova when the opposite is the case in the Brisbane survey.
I can understand 97.3 and MMM rating lower as River runs a format that would take listeners of both stations.
Are there untoward feels to Nova since they “took” River’s old frequency, so does Hit simply do a better job at marketing itself in the region?
Could there even be some confusion between hit Brisbane and hit Toowoomba? I understand the Toowoomba stations get into Ipswich quite well, so are listeners of hit Toowoomba ticking the box for hit105 not realising that it’s a different (albeit very similar) station?
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Who are the 3,000 people listening to Talking Lifestyle? 
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Another thing that’s worth noting.
Despite having a big overlap with the Brisbane radio licence area, River 94.9 manages to get a higher audience share as a single station than what the two Geelong commercial stations managed to get combined in last year’s ratings survey! 
Here’s what I mean below, comparing this year’s Ipswich survey with last year’s Geelong survey:
Overall (10+)
River 94.9: 26.4%
KRock/Bay combined: 18.5%
10-17
River 94.9: 27.2%
KRock/Bay combined: 16%
18-24
River 94.9: 19.7%
KRock/Bay combined: 20% (K Rock: 13%)
25-39
River 94.9: 23.9%
KRock/Bay combined: 27.3% (K Rock: 17.4%)
40-54
River 94.9: 35.1%
KRock/Bay combined: 16.1%
55-64
River 94.9: 31.8%
KRock/Bay combined: 13%
65+
River 94.9: 17.5%
KRock/Bay combined: 13.7%
It’s quite an interesting comparison there, in which it seems that the people in Ipswich value their local commercial station more than what the people in Geelong value with theirs.
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and that the Geelong product sucks.
Hopefully there’ll be another survey there next year which will see how K rock, in particular, has improved under CD James Speed (ex-hit92.9 & SAFM)
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I think you are right there mate. Last time I was in Ipswich Hit 100.7 was a lot clearer then the Brisbane stations on that day. If I didn’t know, I would of thought it was a local station.
Great result for River and well deserved.
The figures for the Brisbane stations demonstrate just how much overlap River has to deal with. The Brisbane stations are just as strong and local as the River signal. Triple M and 97.3 should probably be dissapointed as River has no natural “advantage” over them other than local focus.
I can’t really explain the big difference between Hit and Nova other than the overlap with Hit Toowoomba (which isn’t really significant in the main Ipswich urban area) and the “legacy” status of B105. I have nothing to base this on other than being an SEQ native, but I suspect the legacy aspect of B105 would carry more weight in Ipswich than in Brisbane itself due to an older and more “stable” population who grew up with B105. The Brisbane audience would be less loyal IMHO.
Also there is a misconception among many that 4IP/Radio 10 “became” B105 because 4IP disappeared around the same time as B105 launched. It’s not true of course but a lot of people think this.
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4KQ holds up well in Ipswich too given that River encroaches a bit on the format and the AM (and DAB) signal isn’t great out west.
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Can someone give me some information? 4IP (and its reincarnation Radio 10 and Stereo 10) was originally an Ipswich radio station - thus the IP callsign.
It is now 4TAB.
Where did River come from? If 4IP had hung around for long enough could it have gained an FM licence? Did 4IP do a 2WS - and eventually become a radio station for greater city (Brisbane) rather than a region?
Yes, 4IP did a 2WS & moved into a metropolitan market in the 70s. River 94.9 was a completely new station that started life as QFM back in 1990.
This YouTube audio clip explains the history of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZ1_CO_eRpE
Thanks to ‘voltare2amstereo’ for the above clip.
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I don’t think there were things like LAPs back then. 4IP had a licence to serve Ipswich. They managed to convince the ABA (ABT?) that they could provide an adequate signal strength in Ipswich with a 5kw directional transmitter on St Helena Island in the middle of Moreton Bay. That also just happened to provide a very good signal to Brisbane and the Gold Coast (Sunshine Coast and more). Other stations around the same time that were able to perform the same trick included 2MW that were able to relocate closer to the Gold Coast and increase their power but still provide a local level signal to Murwillumbah. 4NA that was licensed to Nambour was similarly allowed to move closer to the coast and improve reception along the Sunshine Coast. The main criteria seemed to be that the city of licence still received a local level signal. 4AY and 4CD also tried to widen their broadcast area to include adjacent cities with high populations.
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have a look at … http://radio4ip.com.au/
I think and by what was told to me that 4IP moving to Brisbane was more related to the 1974 floods.
Once it was certain the 4IP TX site (near the Dinmore pads) would go under water… the engineer went to the site with a small boat… with the water lapping at the door he shutdown the transmitter and removed the crystals … they were taken to 4BK recently abandoned TX site at Ferny Grove which still had Telecom broadcast lines still connected… the engineer got SOC (sound operations centre) to repatch the 4IP lines and after some other technical work with the TX they went back to air.
From what I can remember of what I was told… there was a lot of argument with the tribunal and in the end resulted in 4IP being given permission to move to St Helena… Somebody might be able to fill more of the blanks in.
This “free lunch” wasnt to happen again for any other station… although Rural Press tried this with River949 going to Mt Nebo at 32kw (ERP) which would of given it better reception in Brisbane, Sunshine Coast then any Brisbane station… of course the Brisbane stations jumped up and down and they were only granted a power increase and height increase and a radiation pattern that looked like a 70s tie dye… which is how the station remains today
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I think the problems that the 1974 floods caused 4IP were just a co-incidence. I don’t have any industry knowledge and was just a kid but it seemed that the impetus for the move was a change that allowed commercial broadcasters that had previously been limited to 2kw omi to increase power to 5kw directional. This saw a large number of changes across the country. In Brisbane, I think every station moved their transmission site and installed new equipment. 4KQ of course moved to St Helena Island. 4BC built new towers at Fig Tree Pocket and 4BH moved to Wynnum West as well as changing from 1390 to 880kHz. So if 4IP wanted to increase power to 5kw it had to have a new transmission site. None of the moves closer to higher population areas like 4IP, 2MW, 4NA etc could have happened without the new transmission specs that were introduced.
Edit: One issue that was fairly big at the time was the ALP-owned 4KQ being able to broadcast to a much larger area from its new location.
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Yes I think the 1974 floods were just a coincidence. 4IP even with their existing transmitter location at Ipswich were already rating very well in Brisbane itself, in fact I think they were winning some surveys long before they “moved” to Brisbane.
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Well the people who told me all of this (no need to drop names) where involved with the station at the time… the floods where the precursor or the catalyst to the move to Brisbane.
They may have been a catalyst, but a lot of radio stations were doing it at exactly the time as mentioned here (eg. 3MP, 2WS, 4AY etc.). 4IP were already winning Brisbane surveys though long before the ‘move’. Remembering Ipswich and Brisbane are less than 40km CBD to CBD so the AM signal from Ipswich was received as a local station across Brisbane long before they moved transmitter sites. I believe 4IP went to air way back in 1935 and they were the dominant pop station in Brisbane from the mid-1960s onwards.
They also moved their studios from Ipswich to the Brisbane CBD (Wharf St) in the early 1970s, before the '74 floods and well before they moved the transmitter to St Helena.
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