What a day for Gemma Fordham to be out of the country with the HIT Network, up in every market.
 
But despite the distance, she is celebrating the result.
 
“I had a chat to Gemma,” says Triple M’s Mike “Fitzy” Fitzpatrick.
 
“I called her and she’s on a plane at the moment somewhere over Romania enjoying a cheeky champagne knowing the five Hit stations all went up around the country.
 
“And anyone who does this long enough, to have five stations go up all at one time on one survey day, is very rare.”
 
Fitzy was doing some celebrating of his own on terra firma in Melbourne “…with the highest breakfast result for Triple M breakfast ever on a 9.9 – that hasn’t happened since survey 8 2005.”
 
To 2016 and 2Day’s FM Rove and Sam have had growth in every book this year, and radioinfo asked the question in our survey preview will that continue with the release of book 7?
 
No it didn’t, a slight drop to sit on a 4.2% share.
 
Triple M’s Grill Team was also down slightly.
 
“I expected Sydney to have a bit of a worse survey than it did actually,” says Fitzy.
 
“We will certainly come back next book as that show was Number 2 earlier this year and it is sounding as good as it ever has and with the addition of Emma (Freedman) it’s really broadened it out.”
 
Smooth 95.3 in Sydney has been the hero of the the last couple of surveys with figures last time, tantalizingly close to double digits with 9.8% share.
 
It’s number 1 FM in Sydney, again we asked will its growth continue?
 
It has retained the Number 1 crown but dropped slightly to hold a 9.7% share All People 10+
 
“I am not going to grumble,” says Nova Entertainment’s Paul Jackson.
 
“I am delighted with the result for smooth it’s even Number 1 25 – 34 year olds.”
 
For ARN in Sydney it has the Number 1 and 2 breakfast shows with Kyle and Jackie O on KIIS and Jonesy and Amanda on WSFM.
 
“Kyle and Jackie O are back to double figures,” says Duncan Campbell.
 
“Which is where we like them.
 
“There’s a bit of work to be done with WS overall, despite the result in breakfast. I think the rise of smooth this year which to some degree wasn’t expected, can’t be ignored and has meant we have gone back and looked at the music on WS and put in place and programmed more effectively to the market,” he says.
 
Paul described Survey 6 as being “in the realms of lottery”, with more stations recording a 0.0% change from any Survey that anyone can remember.
 
And it was “pretty much” like that for the Nova Network in Survey 7.
 
“Across the board we had a very strong card when you look at the sum of the parts and you go around the country we are pretty much where we were in the previous book,” says Paul.
 
“You’d hope and expect that – we are just hoping to eek little bits out in each of our shows to incrementally move forward.”
 
Adelaide’s Mix 102.3 returned to number one in the last book described at the time by Duncan Campbell “as a great recovery”, we asked if the station would maintain its Number 1 FM position.
 
And it did despite the station bleeding -1.8 in share.
 
“If you look back historically you will see that pattern year after year. It’s a broad station so at times it gets a real kick in the 10+ share, so it’s coming off a real high but to a position that still dominates.”
 
Meanwhile in Melbourne KIIS101.1 managed to gain 0.2 but remains languishing in last place among its commercial FM rivals while GOLD dropped 0.6 to remain in second place (FM) but a long way behind FOX which has kicked away to be 2.1 ahead on a 10.1 share.
 
“Melbourne has had challenges,” says Duncan.
 
“It had to change its breakfast show after the first year and it’s up against two heritage brands in Fox and Nova and this year unlike previous years we didn’t really get as much clean air in terms of being able to market without much competition.”
 
Attention now turns to Survey 8.
 
“It’s an important one,” explains Paul. “… it is the last snapshot we get and after that we draw a line in the sand and start again fresh.”

You can read our analysis and spin.