Comment from Peter Saxon.

It’s no secret that while FTA television and print has been severely disrupted by digital media, radio remains in rude health with relatively stable audiences and year on year revenue growth. It’s no secret because CRA shouts it from the rooftops every chance it gets.

But as one of the world’s largest purveyors of newspapers points out, radio needs it to survive. “Newspapers play a pivotal role in driving the daily news cycle on television and radio, with the ABC one of the biggest beneficiaries of exclusive stories provided by the news media, an analysis by The Australian can reveal,” wrote Dana McCauley in the aforementioned publication. 

“Among the major publishers, News Corp’s stories are four times more likely to be picked up by broadcast outlets than any of the other publishers,” the article went on to boast. 

According to a News Corp commissioned survey conducted by media monitoring firm, Streem, the single biggest beneficiary of its content was ABC News Breakfast. 

2GB’s Ray Hadley and Alan Jones also drew on News Corp articles, amplifying the impact of the stories across their top-rating morning and breakfast shows. Included in the analysis was ABC Radio’s Breakfast across Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

The implication is that while radio’s talk titans such as Hadley, Jones, Neil Mitchell and Steve Price like to think they set the days’ agenda, they’d have precious little agenda to set if not for newspapers providing the original fodder for discussion.

At the end of the day – or, in this case, the beginning – we need real journalists, out in the field, to report the news otherwise there’d be nothing for those stuck in a studio or an office to comment on – including this one you’ve just read.

  Peter Saxon