It has been just shy of 12 months since the last Xtra Insights survey of the Sunshine Coast and there’s a new leader in town. ARN‘s 91.1 Hot FM has surged from 3rd to 1st, up 5.9 to an 18.5 share of all audiences 10+. For Sam and Ash (pictured) on breakfast the results are even better. Their 19.8 audience share, up 7.0, means that since August 2017 the station’s numbers have doubled. This is the first time the station has been 1st.
The September 2023 survey of the region had Great Southern Land Media Group owned 92.7 MIX FM and 91.9 SEA FM No 1 & 2 overall and in breakfast. Both saw losses this time in audience share despite finally turning on their repeater frequencies in Noosa on August 1. But both also had their highest ever listening audiences, more than 100K tuning in each week, an increase of 10% for Mix and 22% for SEA FM.
Ben Erbsland, Group Content Director of GSL Media said:
“Our strategic objective has been to establish MIX FM as the leading station for the 40+ demographic, and today we proudly announce that we have achieved this with our highest audience numbers to date. Similarly, SEA FM’s core focus on the 25-39 age group has paid off, as we’ve secured the Number 1 position with SEA FM’s largest-ever audience.”
This survey was conducted across July and August, including the Olympics period. ABC Sunshine Coast and ABC NewsRadio saw some gains as a result, but not as much as I would have expected for an area that had 18 local athletes competing.
Rod Winner, the General Manager of Hot FM, said:
“The amazing 91.1 Hot FM content continues to resonate with the Sunshine Coast listeners, which is great news for our ever growing suite of advertiser partnerships. I’m so incredibly proud of the Hot FM family.”
With Content Director Hale Speedy adding:
“A brilliant result for the 91.1 Hot FM team! I’m incredibly proud of the effort put in by this talented group of communicators right across the day, and it’s extremely satisfying to see hard work rewarded with the stations first ever #1, 10+.”
Unsurprisingly Hot FM saw 40K plus cumulative gains with around 125,100 local listeners tuning every week. All stations saw some gain with the exception of ABC RN.
Community station Sunshine FM always does very well in the region and will make up a portion of the other FM listening not reflected in this survey. There’s also a new commercial streaming station called Noosa.Radio that launched in April likely to make this highly competitive market even more so.
Jen Seyderhelm is a writer, editor and podcaster for Radioinfo