The Sydney radio landscape is looking a little different

Survey 4 has been released and while you’ve seen the raw data, read the analysis and taken a look at the spin, radioinfo has caught up with Gemma Fordham, Mike “Fitzy” Fitzpatrick, Paul Jackson and Duncan Campbell, for their initial thoughts on the results.
 
Nova Entertainment’s Paul Jackson said Survey 3 belonged to Adelaide but Survey 4 certainly belongs to Sydney with smooth 95.3 number one and Nova 96.9 equal second.
 
“Oh my goodness!
 
“Incrementally smooth has been picking people up and suddenly we’ve got this huge audience,” says Paul.
 
The station put on 1.4 to leapfrog KIIS 106.5 for the #1 FM spot in Sydney.
 
SCA’s Gemma Fordham says she is not surprised by the success of smooth in Sydney.
 
I think there has been a bit of a gap there in Sydney, they’ve been smart and gone straight down the middle. I’m not surprised but I don’t think it will remain though,” says Gemma.
 
“It’s been around for four years and everyone knows about the station now and there’s just so much passion for it. People who have converted to it and listen to it are like disciples to it, they absolutely obsess over it and love it and you can see that right across the numbers,” says Paul.
 
“I think we have to acknowledge smooth and the impact they’ve made, the quiet achiever I suppose,” says ARN’s Duncan Campbell. “They moved into our music space in terms of eras, they’re very focused on the 80’s at the moment which is WSFM’s main territory. We can’t compete from a mood perspective but we will look at ways of increasing our music count and reduce the amount of talk and clutter.”
 
And while WSFM took a hit in breakfast to hold a 6.2 share, behind MMM on 6.5. Breakfast at 2Day enjoyed a rise of 0.6 to land on 3.9 – it’s highest return since Rove & Sam began.
 
“Every survey now they have continued to go up…which reinforces our strategy for the show to have slow and steady growth. The station itself had a massive cume gain of 56 thousand to be at 720k and they’re numbers we haven’t seem at 2Day for a very long time. Very happy with that, we have a bit of work to do on TSL, but that’s all good,” says Gemma.
 
 Still in Sydney and SCA’s Mike Fitzpatrick is happy with the Grill Team’s performance this book.
 
“A great result for the Grill Team in Sydney as you would expect during the football season, and especially around State of Origin they really deliver consistently every morning.”
 
The highlight for SCA in Survey 4 is the continued domination of FOX in Melbourne. While every other commercial FM station shed share, FOX rose 0.7 to just a shade under a 10 share overall – 1.8 ahead of it’s nearest rivals, with Hamish and Andy’s shift rising most on Fox.
 
 “The mighty Fox continues. And there’s not much more to say other than the team are doing an outstanding job there.
 
“Up everywhere strong everywhere, very happy,” says Gemma.

Meanwhile Triple M’s Hot Breakfast with Eddie, Mick and Luke remains Melbourne’s  #1 FM Breakfast with a 9.5% share
 
“Always stoked whenever we are number one,” says Fitzy. At first glance we have probably got a bit of work to do on our workday at Triple M, we know we are coming off a 9.5 in breakfast…I’d like to see us grow or least maintain that breakfast audience across the day,” says Fitzy.
 
“It’s a bit of a standstill survey outside of Sydney. Continue what we doing – a good day for SCA.”
 
 “We are also very happy with Melbourne”, says Paul. We’ve put together a great breakfast show with Chrissy, Sam and Brownie, we started the year in 6th place and we are now third.
 
“Interestingly we are only 1.8 share points behind FOX in breakfast who are really being lifted by Hamish and Andy. So that’s our challenge, we’ll keep plugging away.”

“Melbourne remains a battle ground for us,” says Duncan. “It’s the toughest radio market and people are saying it’s settled now with the Nova, Fox and KIIS battle but I don’t agree with at all. “
 
Gold is holding it’s own, it’s equal number 2 FM at a time when Triple M should be doing really well with the football season and it’s not reported on a lot Gold, but it’s a consistently successful station for us.
 
 “KIIS is the real challenge up against two strong brands Fox in particular, “says Duncan. “But we continuing to make improvements to breakfast content, so it’s very much a work in progress for us with more growth to come.”
 
It was better news in Adelaide for ARN with MIX 102.3 beating Nova 919 to be number one FM.
 
“Mix 102.3 back to number one in Adelaide. I think that’s a great example of the ARN strategy playing out. I have acknowledged we had problems in Adelaide and we’d made some mistakes. We identified those and I said we were going to correct them and Mix would return to number one and it has.”
 
However, Nova’s Lewis and Lowe remain number one in breakfast.
 
“We are in the process of evolving our breakfast show, so not a great concern,” says Duncan.
 
 “That stuff doesn’t worry me at all. Nova is number one in breakfast and number one with people under 50 and that’s the way we should always aim to be. I would expect Mix to do well when you get into the over 50’s,” says Paul.
 
 And good news for FIVEaa beating ABC 891 to be the number 1 AM station.
 
“FIVEaa is on the way back to be overall number one here,” says Paul. “I think it could happen. But certainly with election time, people would have been interested and the breakfast show has really connected with more and more people. In fact, everyone at FIVEaa is pulling their weight.”
 
And just on the election, it would appear the eight-week campaign didn’t have much affect on the FM stations around the country.
 
Let’s leave the last word to Fitzy.
 
 “I think the result on the weekend speaks volumes about why it didn’t affect the FM stations.”

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