It’s been a long cold winter of discontent for FM music stations in Sydney and Melbourne whilst their AM talk counterparts bathed in glorious summer as lockdown bit in both cities.
In fact, it was almost a year ago that the various FM heavyweights predicted a comeback by early this year – CRA’s Dave Cameron went as far as to forecast that ‘2021 will be the year of fun.’
The arrival of the Delta variant put paid to that. 2021’s been anything but fun for FM stations. However, thanks to high vaccination rates in NSW and Victoria, restrictions are being lifted and things are starting to get back to something resembling normal. It’s doubtful, though, that AM talk will have loosened its strangle-hold on the top two positions in Sydney and Melbourne in GfK Survey 7’s results, released this morning. Perhaps, by Survey 8, next month, some shift back to FM will start to show. Even then, I wouldn’t expect a total collapse of AM Talk.
In other states, less affected by Covid, music stations – and not necessarily those on FM – remain most popular with listeners.
In Brisbane, from a three-way tie for first place in Survey 5, Nova106.9 broke away to come out on top in Survey 6 ahead of the venerable 4KQ and 97.3FM.
In Adelaide it was MIX102.3 at number one, ABC Adelaide in second place – and proving that platform follows content, CRUISE1323, playing Pure Gold on the AM band, makes it into third.
In Perth, with less than a 1.0 ratings share separating them, Nova 93.7 is on top, followed by Mix 94.5 and 96FM.
While Adelaide’s MIX102.3 is likely to retain its lead in that market, anything could happen in Brisbane and Perth.
Hold on to your hats and keep your betting slips for Survey 7 when it lands at 9:30 this morning, here on radioinfo.
Read Survey 6 results here.
Peter Saxon