Craig Bruce hits back at SCA’s critics

“I spent most of last year having to explain away the 2Day FM, Kyle and Jackie 0 issue,” says SCA Head of Content, Craig Bruce who had a mixed day on Tuesday with the release of the first GfK metro ratings of 2015.

“If you look at the national profile for SCA, given that we’ve got ten stations across the metros, we’ve had our best cume across 2MMM for 10 years. We’ve had our best breakfast result for the Hot Breakfast in their whole history with a 9 share and daylight second. Fox is number one. Mix94.5 is number one with our third Breakfast increase and the numbers for Mix94.5 Perth are outstanding. So, there are some really positive stories today. 
 

“The hit strategy so far… I would go so far as to say that it’s failed today.” Duncan Campbell

“But the two headlines are hit107 and hit92.9,” laments Bruce. “And what does that mean to the hit strategy? It means nothing other than the new Breakfast show on hit Adelaide, which is taking a lot of time to find its feet and find an audience. And by the way Dan and Maz in their first year in Adelaide started at a 9 share and by the middle of the year they were a 6 and by the end of the same year they were an 11, so it’s easy to forget all of these things and Im sure that others will want to gloss over that but it’s the reality.”

Nonetheless, it takes nerves of steel to remain calm as the Austereo ancestral home, the once proud SAFM, plummets to a 5 share and the SCA detractors scoff at the network’s new direction.

“I’ve talked to a lot of people today and I know Duncan (Campbell) and Paul (Jackson) are trashing the format and saying that the strategy is flawed. That’s fine, I’d say the same… I would stick the boot in if the boot was on the other foot. But they’re saying that because they don’t want us in their space.” says Bruce.

If Paul Jackson, Nova Entertainment said something about SCA, it wasn’t to radioinfo when we spoke to him earlier – we’ll have more of that interview soon. However, ARN’s Duncan Campbell had plenty of advice concerning the beleaguered network. 

“The hit strategy so far… I would go so far as to say that it’s failed today. You’ve got hit107 which has really performed very poorly. The Hit format was a bold move and you would want to see movement in the first surveys. And for hit 107 in Adelaide to be a 5 share is really a disaster for them, I would have thought. Perth has performed badly. 2Day FM hasn’t moved. FOX went down a bit and Brisbane has sort of held. 

“I think they’ve got some real challenges ahead of them,” said Campbell.

Craig Bruce isn’t in denial about that. He’s acutely aware of the long hard road ahead to establish a new brand with fresh talent. But he’s also quick to emphasise that his hit station in Melbourne still leads the FM pack.

“When Hamish and Andy start in the middle of the year  we will do more damage to them than they would like.” Craig Bruce.

“Im just glad that today played out the way it did in Melbourne just so we can get some sanity back into the discussion around KIIS and we can finally put what happened to KIIS in Sydney last year in its rightful place, which is a never to be repeated one off,” says Bruce. “They don’t have the Midas touch. They just bought a very good breakfast show and did a brilliant job marketing it and programming it.  And for good measure the programmer responsible for running that show (Derek Bargwanna) just happened to be available to them due to incredible personal circumstances.

“That was never going to happen in Melbourne. And it’s unlikely to happen anywhere ever again. It just isn’t,” he says. 

He is also unimpressed with some of Nova’s results, “If you look around the country they’ve dropped dramatically in Brisbane – down 3 points – 4 points,  25-39.They’re down 2 points in Perth. Sydney Breakfast is off. Nova Breakfast in Melbourne is off and their 10+ is off.”

Above all, Craig Bruce remains supremely confident in the hit strategy to go younger than the competition and ultimately win the CHR wars.

“Eventually when everything comes together… when Hamish and Andy start in the middle of the year and the newer shows have had a chance to have three or four months on the air, we will do more damage to them than they would like. That’s why they’re complaining,” says Craig Bruce.