When a plan doesn’t come together – get a better one

ARN’s Duncan Campbell looks forward to 2013

At the start of the year, it was one of those “great ideas at the time” when MIX 106.5FM coupled Tim Ross with Claire Hooper and told them to get up very, very early and make great radio. In Survey 8 of last year, Breakfast was only rating 4.3 and the station’s overall share was a paltry 5.5. Surely, they could only improve from there.

Nope. In Nielsen Survey 8, just released, the score was Breakfast 3.5 and the station’s share 4.5.

duncancampbell_2_109“Mix is obviously disappointing and has been all year,” says ARN’s National Content Director, Duncan Campbell (left).“But we have plans in place for next year and we have got the breakfast show and now we are focusing on how we position that station musically to defend better against Smooth and grow our position.”

He adds, “We had a huge focus on Melbourne and we will have a fairly intense focus on Mix106.5 in Sydney in 2013. That is the plan.”

While focusing on Melbourne, and introducing an all-female breakfast team in Chrissie Swan and Jane Hall, (below) they improved the numbers from a 4.7 to a 6.3 share in breakfast over the year while the station also gained 0.4 and as of last survey sits on 7.1 overall.

screen_shot_20121217_at_1.00.42_am_200Little wonder, then, that the grand plan for Sydney’s Mix in 2013 includes its own all-woman team in Sami Lukis and Yumi Stynes.

As far as the network’s two brands are concerned, Campbell says, “We had such a successful 2011 that this result (suvey 8 2012) wraps up for us a pretty solid year which has been, in my experience, one of the most competitive years in commercial radio for a long time in Australia.

“We had the introduction of Smooth into the Sydney and Melbourne markets as well as strong consistent marketing presence by DMG and SCA throughout the year. It’s been a year that has not been short of competition that’s for sure.”

Not so much in Melbourne as in Sydney, smoothfm has had a real impact on both Mix and WSFM. With a 5.8 share it now easily out-rates Mix and is eating away at WSFM’s margins. And although an 5.8 share may not sound so formidable, fact is that this time last year the station in Sydney’s 95.3 guise was rating just 2.4. That 3.4 share gain had to come from somewhere.

ja_mic_1_200“Smooth has obviously impacted on WS and Mix so it is encouraging that Jonesy and Amanda (left) have come back and that WSFM, has at the end of the year, once again closed with a very consistent performance, with increases in cume as well. So that looks good for 2013,” says Campbell.

But ARN is far from the struggling network it had been in past years.

“Adelaide and Brisbane are the two cities where we expect to be number one,” says Campbell, “In Adelaide Mix has been number one for five of the surveys this year and it has been number one FM for every survey. And they had an encouraging result this year which is good so they have consolidated their position.”

“The thing in Adelaide, which would be one of the little sidebars of this survey is that Cruise is ahead of SAFM 10+, which when you compare the resources that went to Cruise to the resources that SCA pump into SAFM… it is an interesting little sidebar to the result,” says Campbell.

Brisbane’s 97.3 FM enjoyed a huge spike to topple Nova from the lead. An aberration perhaps? Campbell won’t have a bar of it. “We had a pretty big hit as well in the last couple of books. Mix in Brisbane has been number one for most of this year but it took a hit when Nova surged. That it has bounced back is a positive for us. To be honest that is really where we expect 97.3 FM to be – the number one station.”