Survey 4, dripping with anticipation, out later this morning

As Nielsen surveys go this one, expected to be released at around 10:30 am, is a biggy. For a start, it will give Macquarie and Fairfax, along with the rest of Melbourne radio, their first real glimpse of the potential impact that MTR will have on that market, even though they were only registered for 5 weeks of the survey. For many others, who’ve launched new shows or formats within the past year, Survey 4 will be seen as crunch time as by now they will expect to see trends being established.

After survey three, which seemed to show many stations just drifting, dmg will likely be sweating on whether Nova 969’s breakfast show with Merrick, but without Rosso, can re-establish itself with new chums, Dools and Ricki-Lee. They’ll also be wondering how low Classic Rock can go without expensive talent to play the tracks.

Austereo will be hoping that Eddie McGuire’s Big Breakfast charge up the ratings ladder hasn’t really stalled, as the previous book suggested, and that Sydney’s Grill Team is also more than just a flash in the pan.

Over at ARN, new CEO, Ciaran Davis, will be hoping for signs that his networks can break out of the fair-to-middling rut in which they seem to be firmly entrenched.

Survey 4 will also boast a new demographic split. The old 55+ demo will now become 55-64 and 65+ which will give older target stations a sharper fix on who is listening.

Meanwhile back at Fairfax, apart from MTR’s impact on 3AW, network GM, Graham Mott, will be sweating on two vital bits of news on ‘Survey Tuesday’. First he’ll be eager to find out whether there is any sign that 2UE’s John Stanley and Sandy Aloisi have arrested the steep slide that their breakfast show has been on all year. And secondly, Mott is expecting the results of medical tests to determine whether prolonged therapies have been successful in his battle against cancer.

While not everybody will be wishing him luck in the survey, we are sure that the whole industry joins radioinfo in wishing Graham a clean bill of health.

As usual radioinfo will have all the capital city survey results as soon as they are made available by Nielsen from around 10:30 am onwards.