NINE Radio’s Greg Byrnes tells Peter Saxon that both the rivalry between Ben Fordham and Kyle Sandilands as well as the proposed purchase of SCA by ARN is good for the industry.
What about a purchase of SEN by NINE? Perhaps not.
Listen to the discussion below or read the transcript below that.
You can also read or hear a similar discussion between Peter Saxon and ARN CCO Duncan Campbell here.
SAXON: In Sydney. It’s very interesting to people. It certainly is to the media about the supposed battle between Ben Fordham and Kyle and Jackie O. And they’re neck and neck today. 16% of the market. 16. What? You’re 16.1 and there 16.2. Is that right?
BYRNES: No, 16 two and 16 three. Certainly, neck and neck. And not much in it at all after a pretty torrid year. It’s I think it’s good for the industry Pete.
SAXON: Well, that’s good. How?
BYRNES: It’s well because people are interested, certainly it’s chalking up some, some um some columns in newspapers. Everyone’s keen to see who’s winning. What’s going on. It keeps the teams – not that they take themselves for granted, but it certainly adds a bit of extra spice to Kyle and Ben. They, swap text messages along the way.
SAXON: So, they’re good mates after all, aren’t they? It’s friendly rivalry, isn’t it?
BYRNES: I think there is utmost respect for each other. What they do along with, Jackie and their teams all around them, they’re getting out of bed at a terrible time of the day. Each day, five days a week. It’s hard work. And sure, they want to be number one, but we’ve got two very different audiences, and we’re marketing to two very different clients.
SAXON: So, apart from bragging rights, there’s really no sort of bonus at the end of it or anything like that, financially. You sell just as much advertising that way .
BYRNES: Absolutely. And I think what’s, what’s really interesting is the gap between if you look where number three is, um, you know, Ben, Kyle and Jackie O. They’re now right out ahead of everyone else. And, you know, as I say, we’ve had the rivalry all year, and it would appear we’re going to finish the year exactly the way we started.
SAXON: So, a16.2 and 16.3, survey result for breakfast is in anybody’s language, is an incredibly good rating, no matter who number two is or number one. And number three is what? Half that?
BYRNES: Yeah. Half that. Yeah. Um, and and I’m just going through I think.
SAXON: I think smooth might be about 10, actually.
BYRNES: I can tell you here. Yeah, there’s a couple of eights. There’s, you know smooth. Yeah. Eight. So, we’re eight. Those two shows (GB and KIIS Breakfast) are eight points ahead of number three. Yeah.
SAXON: There you go. Do you share a lot of audience or any audience at all with KIIS?
BYRNES: Very little with KIIS. We share, obviously, with the ABC from time to time. But again, two very different talk styles and to talk formats. We share in relation to music we share with 2UE and also with smooth. To a lesser extent, probably, triple M. But you know, what’s pleasing for us is, I suppose it would be quite frustrating for the music networks that are serving up music, for us, if people are turning off talk, they’re actually just looking for something totally different, maybe a bit of a break. And then they will come back to us. We know that.
SAXON: Everybody’s been talking about this proposed merger between ARN and SCA. How do you think that would affect the industry, as a whole, if that were to go ahead?
BYRNES: Well, obviously further consolidation – there’s been several movements around, you know, the initial proposal and other parties have bought in. Again, you know, it sparks interest in the in our platform. I’m very lucky that on the content side, I just need to worry about what we’re doing. Certainly there will be implications from a commercial sense. We’re owned by NINE. And the might that is associated with NINE means that they will be looking on very, very closely at all of this. Again, it’s it’s probably just creating more interest within our industry and just showing the power that is radio and the medium that continues through, say, digital audio to go from strength to strength.
SAXON: From a content point of view. If it came up for sale. Would you go after something like SEN?
BYRNES: SEN? Uh, well, it’s not it’s not my decision to make, Pete.
SAXON: No, of course not. But from a content point of view, if the if the powers that be said, look, Greg, we’re going to buy a, I don’t know, a sports station.
BYRNES: Keep in mind that we did have, when NINE took full ownership of this radio network, there was a sports network at the time, Macquarie Sports Radio, which was consuming a lot of resources with very little return, to the point where we drew a line in the sand and said this isn’t working. We need to look at this differently. So the the idea of an all sports radio format, um, I think if, if the previous Macquarie couldn’t make a go of it, I think you would be very reluctant to jump back in there again.
SAXON: So, if you can’t make it there, you can’t make it anywhere. As to paraphrase a song. Greg, thanks for your time. Really appreciate it.
BYRNES: No worries, Pete.
Peter Saxon – Managing Editor