Ahead of ARN launching new stations in Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth, and the wrap up of the festive season which saw most capital cities listen to a lot more Coles Radio, with some sneaky Elf Radio for good measure, DAB+ listening in GfK Radio 360 Survey 8, across the country, yielded some interesting changes and data for networks and advertisers.
There have been some stations quietly dropped in the last 12 months. Easy Hits and MMM 70s vanished from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane DAB, as did MMM 80s in Adelaide and Perth. These stations likely made way for SCA’s launch of their new Heart Network and associated stations Heart and Heart Hits, that were announced in October 2025. While you can tune in via LiSTNR, these stations may have been stalled by a trademark application for Heart by Global Media and Entertainment and a tweaking to the original concept to include a 60s station, Heart 60s, perhaps inspired by the success of the Capital Radio Network‘s Forever 60s that also launched last year in Canberra, Perth and a few other markets with Capital Radio Network stations.
RSN DAB departed Melbourne after the station was purchased by SEN. This survey SEN Sydney was included in the Brisbane DAB+ numbers.
CADA was top again in Sydney, with 150K cume audience there and significantly less in the other metros. The top station in the country was Coles Radio with nearly a 400K cume audience, a significant increase over the festive period in all metros with the exception of Melbourne where their numbers are still above 100K. SCA’s DANCE HITS was top there for the first time above Gold 80s and Coles. Coles Radio pipped smooth in Brisbane and Adelaide, which should be a nudge to advertisers. In Perth smooth was again toppled, not by Coles, but by 96FM 80s, an ARN station which also hosts Christian O’Connell and Jonesy and Amanda‘s catch up radio podcasts.
DAB+ has added a total cume audience of 3.863,000 people to radio listening since stations launched across the 5 cities. Last week, as part of the document released by the Copyright Tribunal of Australia with its decisions on changes to the Copyright Amendment Act 2006 Commercial Radio and Audio (CRA) CEO Lizzie Young, reflected of the value of digital stations in the future:
“CRA contended that the future for DAB+ was limited. Ms Young observed that her instructions from CRA’s Board (comprising representatives from the CRA Members) were that DAB+ is “not strategically important for the industry”. Ms Young further observed that “they don’t focus their attention on it”, and that given its limit to certain locations, it was “cost prohibitive” for the industry to continue to develop it. Even in metropolitan areas, DAB+ fails in tunnels. Given difficulties in establishing infrastructure, and getting coverage in tunnels, efforts are instead moving to streaming. As to the future of DAB+ going forward, Ms Young’s evidence was that “DAB[+] remains on foot with the spectrum that we have used as we use it today, but certainly not for growth in our future”. According to Ms Young, CRA will not be investing in further DAB+ technology, being the infrastructure or promotion of DAB+.”
There are a total of 145 more stations on air across the 5 capital cities than there were before DAB+ was introduced, some that are networked across multiple cities. Pop up Xmas station Elf Radio (on air in 3 cities and streaming) had 24,000 listeners in Survey 8. DAB+ stations have a cumulative audience across the cities of 3.8 million listeners.
DAB+ results:
Jen Seyderhelm is a writer, editor and podcaster for Radioinfo.
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