The fifth GfK Radio 360 survey of the Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth metro markets will be out this Tuesday morning, August 27, at 9:30am AEST. It was measured from May 19 to Jun 22 & Jul 7 to Aug 10, and included the entire Olympics period, sans the final day, which will almost certainly benefit Nine Radio stations.

To break this down further, Nine saw a 25% increase in year-on-year listening from day 1 of the Olympics. As many events kicked off around 9pm, that period of time up until midnight should see gains this survey. While when we woke up in the morning we could catch up on what had happened overnight in whatever station we listened to news, only Nine and ABC stations might have been able to provide Ray Hadley or Bruce McAvaney for example actually calling an event as it happened.

I know lots of people were tuning in to, and enjoying, Roy and HG during the Olympics too, for the lighter side. They were on Monday to Friday at 11am on ABC Radio, and at 2pm on RN. There too I am expecting some spikes in listening.

For 2GB specifically, with our tendency to wake up and check the Olympics results, I think Ben Fordham should retain No 1 and grow his breakfast audience share, as will Ross and Russ on 3AW in Melbourne. Luke Grant covered for Ray Hadley while he was in Paris and any small drops (which there may not be at all, Luke is excellent) could again be attributed to a fill in for at least two of the five week survey period.

In Melbourne I think that any more than 0.5 gain overall and in breakfast for any station that is not the ABC or 3AW will be a huge win in the circumstances. That will certainly be what Kyle and Jackie O at KIIS 101.1 and Jase and Lauren over at Nova 100 will be hoping for. As this will be the first full survey without Marty Sheargold, the current breakfast team of Rosie, Wil and Daisy will also hope that AFL fans have stuck with them and that they don’t cop losses due to literally being a stop gap until a 2025 lineup is announced.

In Adelaide Sonya and Jules on ABC Breakfast will really want to see some audience growth after copping some flack over their trip to Paris on the tax payer dollar. It will be interesting to see how Nine’s 6PR and 4BC fare in Perth and Brisbane respectively. Brisbane is a closely fought race and perhaps the stations who have ex-Olympic champions as broadcasters, like Susie O’Neill on Nova breakfast and Leisel Jones on Triple M Drive might, after such a spectacular result in the pool, find they have an ace up their sleeve.

I could be totally wrong and Survey 5 isn’t at all impacted by the glorious success, and in some cases notoriety, that resulted from the 2024 Paris Olympics. We shall see at 9:30am this Tuesday morning.

Jen Seyderhelm is a writer, editor and podcaster for Radioinfo

Email: [email protected]