Radio Ratings Report #1

Once again there were not many surprises in Survey #6 of the Radio Ratings. The Kyle and Jackie O show suffered a sizeable hit, along with its station 2day fm, whereas in other states it remained fairly dominant, Triple M continued its troubles in everywhere but Adelaide and the usual ABC and talk-back stations continued their strength.

In Melbourne, the Matt and Jo show maintained its lead over all FM competitors, however, after consecutive drops, Nova100's Hughesy and Kate (with Ed Kavalee) narrowed the gap by 0.6. 3AW and ABC 774 continue to win in their focus on news. It is easy to see, therefore why the languishing Triple M network has opted for a professional news-focus for their new show- The Hot Breakfast with Eddie McGuire. If anyone oozes professionalism it is Eddie and he is well-known in Melbourne for his Sunday Herald Sun editorials. More on Eddie later. Hamish and Andy increased their strangle-hold on all competition, increasing their share to 22.6... almost 1 in 4 Melbourne's listen to Hamish and Andy! Even though Roy and HG are only on Mondays and Fridays, they have not appeared to lift Triple M out of its afternoon slump, with its share dropping to 3.6. Nova 100's drive show had a significant drop of 0.8 to 6.8. This hurts after their "Everything's on show" TV and bill-board campaign. It often comes across as talking about trivial things, without the wit and polished nature of Hamish and Andy. Also, Triple M's new "music that rocks" motto has not lifted its share across the workday. It should return to its traditionally rock music format... that means no Katy Perry.

The show itself has a heavy focus on interviews, rather than talk-back, and features AFL rather heavily. This not only puts it in competition with the newsy AM shows but with Sen 1116's Morning Glory show, which puttered along with 3.6 points, which is fairly average. We shouldn't read into the MMM breakfast slot result of 3.7 as the survey was taken prior to when Eddie's show commenced. The show has only been on air for one and a half weeks and it has a fair way to go to make up the ratings lost by Pete and Myf.

The Hot Breakfast is certainly not all about Eddie, with Mieke Buchan, Tony Moclair and Luke Darcy comprising the rest of the team. Good to see them going with a group of relative unknowns (or it could just be that they couldn't afford big names with Ed draining the budget). However, they are quite a nifty group, individually at least. Buchan is a sports interviewer among other things, who sounds fairly good on radio... thankfully she doesn't seem to be too much in the Jackie O mould. Luke Darcy would be relatively well known to any AFL nut, which is most of Melbourne and he also is quite perceptive when it comes to AFL. However it remains to be seen how well he can contribute to other matters. Tony Moclair has a large array of voices in arsenal and is also quite witty, he just needs to establish himself with the audience. However as observed in the Herald Sun after his first show, it is firmly the Eddie show... which people will either love or hate.

Back to the ratings, however. Over in Sydney, the most significant story comes in 2day fm's big drop. The whole Kyle suspension seems to have resulted in a massive 2.2 point drop for the Breakfast slot, which seemingly had a flow-on effect for the rest of the day. A huge 2.9 drop in the 9-12 shift and a 2.0 drop in the 12-3 shift. Even Hamish and Andy suffered a 0.2 point drop, though they have never been as popular in Sydney as in Melbourne. Either way, 2day's nemesis in Nova 100 is rubbing its hands after being level with Kyle and Jackie O, despite also dropping across the rest of the day.

And Perth continues to show its love for Mix 94.5 (an Austereo station) with an increase of nearly 3 points to 18.5. However, Hamish and Andy continue to dominate across Australia, increasing their afternoon lead to 19.8. However, there is tight competition with The Big Couch, with a huge 2.5 point surge to 16.0.

Over in Adelaide, there were no huge changes, with SAfm, Mix and MMM still dominating the FM dial and sports station FIVEaa and ABC the AM airwaves. Hamish and Andy are 6.7 points clear of 5AA for the drive home. And Adelaide's dominant brekky team continues to be the experienced bunch on FIVEaa.

In Brisbane, FM stations reign supreme, with B105 (Fox and 2day's sister station), 97.3FM, Triple M and Nova all doing well. Most notably, Nova continues to increase its lead over B105. Hamish and Andy are also more than 5 points clear of the nearest competitor, Ryan, Monty and Wippa.