Macquarie Radio Network director Jack Singleton has blasted the media for misreporting radio statistics and said both newspapers and radio stations "should be sued" for painting 2DayFM as the top dog.
The latest Nielsen radio statistics were published yesterday. Singleton complained that media outlets were quick to crown 2DayFM king, reclaiming its FM throne from WSF, which had usurped it in the last survey.
A more appropriate headline, he suggested, would be along the lines of "2GB has just won its seventy-second survey in a row". "I'm sick of it," he said.
"Every survey for 10 years 2GB has been number one in Sydney, yet the SMH, AdNews and others say '2Day is back on top'." That is true, he said, if you want to "invent a convenient category called commercial FM".
Singleton said that including AM categories, 2DayFM was "not even number three", and that the continuous "bullshit" was increasingly tiresome. "If they ran an ad [claiming to be the number one radio station] they would be sued for misleading consumers."
Singleton suggested that, because of what journalists were reporting, some advertisers were being duped. "Our ad guys tell clients they are number one and they get a look of disbelief. We're sick of it. Maybe we'll sue Fairfax and Yaffa [and the others]. It's infuriating."
Singleton ventured it was not about focusing on "less interesting statistics" or "inventing convenient sub-categories". Elements such as audience and time spent listening "where we are superior in every shape and form" might be better metrics to focus on, he ventured.
"If we want to invent our own bullshit figures, we could." While journalists may "conveniently forget about AM" listeners did not, he said. "And listeners are kind of important."
Singleton though, said that most advertisers knew where to place their money, despite the media reports. He cited Deloitte figures "that show just under 25% of all Sydney radio ad dollars were spent with 2GB".
Perhaps 2GB was so far ahead of the competition, he suggested, that it was like being in the Himalayas "and not being able to see Everest because it was way up in the stratosphere".
Singleton said he would like to offer "congratulations to ABC 702 on coming second. A distant second to 2GB. But a whole percentage point ahead of 2DayFM".
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