When Kyle Sandilands had his huge dummy spit last week over his perceived lack of recognition for his and Jackie O’s latest survey result, it brought the ratings analysis back into sharp focus.
With a Cumes audience of 738,000 Kyle & Jackie O set an all-time Australian record for the most listeners to a program in a single market, but Ben Fordham at 2GB is being touted as the number 1 breakfast program in the same market, Sydney.
Ben’s share of 16.9% far eclipsed K&J’s 12.5% in much the same way it did a year ago in Survey 7 when Ben had a huge 19.8% to K&J’s 10.7%.
At that time Australian media proclaimed 2GB’s breakfast program as Number 1 in Sydney while KIIS took the crown for best FM breaky show.
Interestingly, in Survey 7 2021 both programs had similar cumes, Ben with 516,000 and K&J with 517,000.
In this latest survey the difference in numbers couldn’t be more stark, Kyle & Jackie O with 738,000, and Ben with 492,0001, a difference of almost a quarter of a million listeners, 246,000.
In any other market in the world the KIIS106.5 breakfast program would be hailed as number 1 in its marketplace, but not here in Australia where Share has been the measuring stick.
While radioinfo has been publishing a regular separate Cumes report for at least the last four years, it is one of the few, if not the only media outlet in Australia that ranks stations and breakfast shows in this way.
With interactive graphs and tables added in late 2020, radioinfo has continued to cover overall station results and the breakfast shows in the five metro markets, and for the majority of that time the Kyle & Jackie O Show has been at or very near the top.
Generally speaking this year the FM breakfast shows in Sydney and Melbourne have been a long way in front of their AM Talk competitors, though it is worth remembering that Ross & Russel (3AW) were at the top or close to during the first waves of the pandemic.
The argument of “Reach and Frequency” for advertisers is based around the Share and Averages, but if you are an advertiser looking at bang for your buck, what about those 246,000 extra listeners that KIIS 106.5 has in breakfast.
246,000 more listeners or a total of almost three quarters of a million listeners makes a very compelling argument for who really is Number 1.
Further reading on cumes v shares:
Cumulative Audience is the Money Metric that deserves more respect
1GfK Survey 6 2022 Mon-Fri 5.30am-9.00am
Comment by Wayne Stamm
Ratings exist for Sales / Clients obviously, and in particular Agency Sales.
Share is vital as the ‘ division ‘ of spend by Agencies uses Share %, so share is critical.
A CD’s role is to convert Cume to Share. Cume is more a function of :
A. Format
B. Marketing
C. Shows / Talent
It’s an interesting conversation.