All up this is a survey that NOVA and Nine Entertainment would be very happy about, but both with a flip side of the coin.
Nova stations performed well in every capital city with the network’s smooth and Nova stations in Sydney and Melbourne in the top ten most listened to in the country. smooth stations took a little bit of a hit, but that’s not uncommon at this time of year before they usually surge in the lead up to Christmas and post football seasons.
What was unexpected was the drop off of listeners to Jase and Lauren on Nova 100. They are still the most listened to show in Melbourne but Nova 100 itself dropped from 1st to 3rd most listened to station in the city, behind SCA‘s The Fox FM and ARN’s Gold 104.3 who both seemed to have picked up audience that Nova lost.
Smooth 95.3 Sydney is the most listened to in that city and Nova 969 saw the biggest listener gains overall and for Fitzy, Wippa and Kate Ritchie on breakfast.
Nine Radio stations 2GB and 3AW had a blinder in Sydney and Melbourne respectively Survey 6. Both stations were up in every daypart and on weekends with 2GB’s cume listening audience this survey seeing them overtaking Gold 101.7, 2Day FM and Triple M. Ben Fordham and Ross and Russ on breakfast between them picked up around 90K cume listeners. These are really positive figures for a station potentially for sale. This could be partly down to the pointy end of sporting seasons and a station who prides itself of being a home for NRL and AFL but unfortunately it is not translating to audiences in Brisbane and Perth. Particularly Brisbane where 4BC was overtaken for listeners by ABC News Radio and Radio National.
Positives for SCA were The Fox FM as mentioned but not so for most of their Triple M stations which was surprising as they’re usually better represented heading into football finals.
ARN will be very happy with The Christian O’Connell Show in Melbourne ahead of its launch into Sydney next year. Kyle and Jackie O were still No 1 in Sydney for cume audience and Jonesy and Amanda at Gold 101.7 were steady.
If ever you wanted to see the difference in two cities it is evidenced in Concetta and Luka on breakfast at triple j. Sydney seems to be more receptive to youth stations and music, also evidenced in the highest DAB+ listenership to CADA. Survey 6 saw the pair up 30K listening audience in Sydney and down the same amount in Melbourne. Same show, same music, but it just seems to sit better in NSW.
Full GfK Radio 360 Survey 6 results here. Spin and DAB+.
Jen Seyderhelm is a writer, editor and podcaster for Radioinfo.