I read with some surprise Samantha Maiden‘s news.com.au article yesterday that former Liberal National Opposition leader Peter Dutton‘s North Brisbane seat of Dickson was not polled in the lead up to last weekend’s Federal election because it was feared the results might ‘spook’ him. As a result the already marginal seat was lost with a 7.9% swing to the ALP, alongside the election. It was an even bigger swing to the ALP in the Victorian seat of Melbourne where Greens leader Adam Bandt is still not assured of holding on either, despite high profile support.
I heard a saying that has stuck with me when I did my Counselling Diploma in a suburb that was part of Peter Dutton’s electorate 12 years ago:
“You can’t clean up someone else’s back yard until you have watered and weeded your own.”
True for psychologists, Dutton, Bandt and also perhaps for Kyle and Jackie O on KIIS 101.1.
There hasn’t been a lot of attention on this, because results didn’t pan out as anticipated, but the recent GfK Radio 360 Survey 2 came out two days after the first anniversary of Kyle and Jackie O’s launch into Melbourne. Survey 2 was KIIS 1065 Sydney’s worst result, for all audiences 10+, in three years.
To try and turn around Melbourne listeners this year the pair went south a couple of times to drop and dig, offering money, car and jewelry prizes in the process. This did increase their personal and station ratings, but strangely not in their key 18-24 audience where they were down 3.6% in Sydney and 4.0% in Melbourne. Melbourne’s growth was in 55-64 listeners, up 3.4% which, if the situation was different, Kyle would most likely find humour in.
The bigger issue was that via putting money, people and time into winning over Melbourne, Sydney, Kyle and Jackie O’s own electorate if you like, felt neglected and that showed in Survey 2 more than the gains in Melbourne.
Down 1.0 to 12.3% overall, against a 0.7 gain in Melbourne. Down 88,000 in breakfast cumulative listening, and close to 100K for the station audience overall. Which means that Sydney listeners weren’t finding something for them on KIIS 1065 when they surfed the dial. smooth fm, Triple M and triple j breakfast reaped the rewards of people going elsewhere.
Kyle Sandilands must have had some premonition that this might be the case in comments he made the day before:
“I’ve told our management this, we’re not going to super serve Melbourne and ignore our Sydney audience. Here’s something I haven’t even discussed with Jackie, if we don’t rate better by the end of this year, I’m pulling the carpet out. I’ll just take the show off Melbourne.”
And he is right. Gaining ground in Melbourne at the expense of a long term and loyal Sydney audience is the electoral equivalent of the Greens increasing their votes nationwide while still at risk of losing all lower house seats including their leader too.
By comparison, and still at ARN, the Gold Network seems to have made key decisions in a different direction.
When Sydney’s WSFM became Gold 101.7, it joined Adelaide’s Cruise 1323 and Melbourne’s Gold 104.3 in what became the Gold Network, “made with the aim of connecting with a younger 25-54 audience while still appealing to the station’s loyal fan base.”
Shortly after that announcement John Dean, who had been with Cruise since the beginning, announced he was stepping away from his breakfast on-air role. On month later Craig Huggy Huggins was given Dean’s breakfast shift. Huggy had been doing afternoons on Cruise and mornings on Gold 104.3.
In Survey 2 Cruise decreased, Gold 101.7 was steady and Gold 104.3 increased with the Christian O’Connell Breakfast show the No 1 FM program in that slot in Melbourne.
For those who don’t know Christian, he was an UK radio star brought over by ARN six years ago to win over Melbourne, much like Kyle and Jackie O last year. Not having to spread himself across two nations, networks or states, Christian invited locals to make major decisions for him, like what AFL team he should back and where he should go for the best pizza. Melbourne accepted the invitation and Christian, Patrina Jones and Jack Post have stuck.
When John left Cruise 1323 there were rumours within the industry that Adelaide, as part of ‘a broader change in direction‘ and also possibly to manage the rather large amount of funds the network was investing in Kyle and Jackie, would get a networked breakfast show by either Gold 101.7’s Jonesy and Amanda or Christian O’Connell. If true I would suggest that one or both of them, industry veterans who know and respect their audiences, saw what was happening down the corridor and declined, foreshadowing the impact on their own electorates, I mean cities.
Kyle and Jackie O also know and respect their audience. Those who listen to them know this. Yes it is a long game to bed in a new show but unfortunately due to certain groups like the MFW resolutely siding against them, and decency breaches with the ACMA, for every step forward it is two back.
After a tough 12 months with similar job losses and a few announcer debacles too, ARN’s rival SCA has bounced back today with an ASX release showing that audio revenues were up around 9% on same period last year.
Radioinfo founding editor Steve Ahern said:
“The existence of a range of different types of media (community, public service – ABC & SBS, and commercial) gives Australia a balance of views and local connections that also helped engaged people this election.
In my view a diversity of views able to be heard on a range of different types of radio stations is important for Australian democracy. As is localism and intelligent, respectful conversations that are not afraid to encompass complexity.”
ARN’s AGM is this Thursday morning May 8 starting at 9am AEST. It will involve a re-election of Directors and the release of financial statements for the year ending December 31, 2024. Share value is down 37% (see above). It will feel a totally different proposition to the AGM last year with Christian O’Connell and Kyle and Jackie O recently re-signed to longer contracts. Jonesy and Amanda’s runs out at the end of this year with no news yet on their future.
From a position of pain SCA has risen off the ropes, and other industry organisations, like the Super Radio Network are seeing the reward of hyper localism among their listeners, if not yet in the ratings (2SM in Sydney is not part of metro surveys). This might be ARN’s rebuild too. But there are lessons all networks can learn from ignoring local for a bigger picture.
Jen Seyderhelm is a writer, editor and podcaster for Radioinfo. Email: [email protected]
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