Steve Ahern analyses the trends from Survey 1.

There are some rules in Australian radio programming that have been proven true over time.

There’s nothing to say that rules can’t be broken and that stations shouldn’t try new things, because times change and experimentation leads to new successes. But you’ve got to really understand the radio rules first.

Here are the rules and below is how they have played out this survey.

1. Networked breakfast shows don’t work in a big country like Australia.

Maybe. But I would rather refine it further.

Breakfast is a time for audiences to connect with their day and to find out what happened while they slept and what will happen today.

Breakfast shows networked to both of Australia’s major capital cities, Sydney and Melbourne, don’t work. The cities are too different, their attitude to programs from the other city is either dismissive or combative. Their interests are different, so is the weather, the football, the traffic, the leisure, the foodie lifestyle, the history of modern settlement and migration and so many other aspects of daily life. Kyle and Jackie O didn’t work in Melbourne, neither did John Laws. Christian O’Connell may prove this truism wrong over time, but he didn’t today, Gold Sydney breakfast dropped significantly.

In the other cities, the same holds true, due to time zone differences, weather, sport, lifestyle and a similar ‘not made here’ attitude. A Brisbane listener in summer could be out on the golf course by 6.30am, in the office by 9 for the airconditioning, having an afternoon swim at 6pm, then off to dinner. In Adelaide, sunrise is later, the weather is colder, and there’s algal blooms in Holdfast Bay. In Perth, similar differences apply, plus a 3 hour time difference in Summer.

Local usually wins breakfast radio on major local stations.

National breakfast shows can work, but they are not as likely to win ratings because they just don’t have enough local touch points for each city. The ABC’s national networks, especially triple j, do well and there are many national DAB stations in each market, but they are not the ones that consistently top the ratings. They’re not trying to, those stations have a different mission, for instance, triple j has to bring youth culture, news and Aussie music to regional audiences just as much as the capital cities, so its focus is wider

The radio markets are also different. Melbourne had community station 3RRR long before it got the triple j network, now it also has youth station SYN. Sydney likes Kyle and Jackie O, Melbourne doesn’t. Melbourne listeners liked comedians Judith Lucy and Dave Hughes, Sydney not so much. Even though Sydney now has a couple of AFL teams, Melbourne doesn’t really think of Sydney as an AFL town, they know it’s full of NRL ‘thugs.’

2. Only a few special shows can carry an audience with them across stations or timeslots.

True. The success of Jonesy and Amanda’s move to drive in Sydney, with no loss of audience puts them in the same league as K&J, John Laws and Alan Jones in their ability to carry an audience with them. This is especially noticeable given that the rest of the shifts on Gold 101.7 dropped. They did not do so well in Meobourne… see rule 1.

3. Changing station names is bad for ratings.

Mostly true, except if the brand name was so trashed that it had no value any more (remember Vega). Where ARN changed the name of its stations to KIIS in other markets, some of those stations have dropped in this survey. The heritage brands, especially in the smaller cities, carry a huge amount of brand loyalty. SCA rediscovered this truism a few years ago when they changed their names to HIT. They eventually realised the error and changed them back to Fox, B105, SAFM, etc, which has helped most of those stations regain lost ground.

4. Summer favours music stations.

Yes, as long as there are no other mitigating circumstances, such as wars, terrorism, fires, floods or other important news that forces people back to news/talk formats during their summer holidays. In those cases audiences go back to news/talk formats, at least for a while each day.

The summer holidays are not just about going away from your usual place of living and working. Sometimes that is relevant, but mostly it is about a change of routine not location. Families with children know that nothing is the same in your daily routine when then kids are off school. Breakfast listening habits change, so does control of the radio in the car and who commands the smart speaker. Time spent listening changes because the adults in the household have different listening habits while doing holiday activities with their kids.

5. Cricket tests disrupt summer radio listening

Sort of, but it depends if Australian is wining and who they are playing.

This used to be true: Survey 1 usually favoured ABC Local Radio and commercial cricket stations, but now the ABC has split its coverage of cricket between the local stations and the ABC Sport stations on DAB and the ABC Listen App, the bonus cricket listening numbers that local radio used to get are now no longer such a factor for ABC local stations. Total cricket listening is still strong and important for the ABC, but it is now split between two and sometimes three digital sport stations, so it no longer helps ABC local stations gain cume and TSL in survey 1.

6. The Hottest 100 disrupts Australia Day weekend listening.

Yes it does. Triple j usually goes up thanks to the Hottest 100 effect and the many BBQs and listening parties around the country. This helps triple j gain audience in surveys one and two then the Hottest 100 effect wears off by survey 3.

7. Listeners listen less in summer.

This has been debunked by recent CRA research. They may change listening habits, but there’s still plenty of radio listening during holidays. This survey showed that radio listening increased during summer, with more people listening to radio on average each week during survey (cumes). 12.7 million people listened to commercial radio during this survey.

8. Radio Advertising is wasted during January.

Wrong. Just look at the way sales have changed. In the past, Christmas and Boxing Day sales were the peak, then retail dropped off during the January holiday period. Now sales are continuous, going beyond bricks and mortar stores to online sales as well. If you miss out on advertising in January you are now behind the eight ball for weeks afterwards.

So with all those things in mind, what should we make of this survey?

People who don’t understand how the ratings work may be looking for a Kyle and Jackie O angle on this survey. The one week of Kyle and Jackie coverage in the survey may have helped KIIS retain listeners, but that’s all. Then the following weeks of them both being high profile in the media will probably help survey 2, but are not relevant to this survey. Now that they will no longer be heard for the rest of survey two, or perhaps forever on KIIS, the station will likely take a hit in the breakfast audience next survey. But remember, the final weeks of survey 1 are also rolled into survey 2, so the effect of them no longer being on KIIS breakfast will materialise slowly over the first four surveys of the year. For the record, the K&J Breakfast show scored a 12.7 breakfast share, exactly the same as last survey, but lost cume, declining by 60,000 listeners in that timeslot.

The station name change to KIIS had mixed results in the smaller markets. KIIS Adelaide was the worst hit, losing over 3 share points and shedding 123,000 listeners, while KIIS Brisbane gained 59,000 listeners from the branding change. But there was another factor in the Brisbane market, ARN dropped, then brought back the known local breakfast team Robin, Kip and Corey, a move that fulfilled the Brisbane audience’s need for a home town local show that they have grown to love over time.

In Sydney the instability caused by the many changes at breakfast, most notably at Gold, but pretty much everywhere except Triple M and smooth resulted in listeners sampling other stations. This hit Gold and 2UE hardest. Triple M mounted a cheeky campaign saying that their breakfast team was now the longest serving (commercial FM) breakfast team on air in the market. They went up a little.

Commercial news stations benefitted from the uncertainty of the world, so did the ABC, but they also lost audience to their own specialist sport stations so could not realise the benefits of cricket coverage to lift the numbers for the local stations. Across the 5 surveyed cities the ABC Sport station on DAB, streams and the ABC Listen App had a total of 163,000 listeners that in the past would have listened to their local ABC radio station. This is not necessarily a negative for ABC Radio, but they need to communicate the strategy to stakeholders and ratings watchers, so that there is an understanding of why summer listening numbers on local stations will never be a good as they were before DAB+ and streaming.

Speaking of DAB and streaming, two music networks have also demonstrated the value of new stations via digital. Nove Entertainment’s Smooth stations have been on DAB in the smaller markets for some time and are continuing to gather an audience for the format in cities where there was previously no smooth listening. SCA’s Heart stations have also made an immediate impact with small but significant first numbers now that they have been on air for a full survey period.

Looking at other shifts where hosts have moved recently:

Nova Melbourne’s Jase Hawkins, Lauren Phillips and Clint Stanaway rose 2.3 share points and Fifi Fev and Nick on Fox gained 1.6 share points while Gold’s Christian O’Connell slipped by 0.8 in that timeslot. ABC Melbourne breakfast fell the most this survey, whiel top station 3AW gained 0.9 and is now more than 8 share points ahead of the rest of the market. In Sydhey, O’Connell dropped 3.6 share points in his new networked Sydney breakfast shift.

In Brisbane, the sacked then reinstated Robin, Kip and Corey reinforced the importance of a local well known breakfast team, lifting the shift by 2.1 share points in the breakfast timeslot.

Across the KIIS network, Smallzy lifted the KIIS night show significantly in most cities, while his former station Nova fell at night in most cities, except Sydney.

And one more thing, in case you didn’t notice it in our Spin Cycle story, ARN did not provide any media releases or spokesperson for their stations. I guess they were busy with other things.

Steve Ahern is the publisher of this trade journal.

Other ratings reports:

First 2026 radio ratings survey: Smooth again tops Sydney, Fox surges in Melbourne

Nova Sydney and Melbourne and The Fox the winners in the cumes – GfK Survey 1, 2026

HEART, HEART HITS, GOLD and KIIS debut on DAB+ with a bang and a whimper

Spin Cycle: GfK Survey 1, 2026