Kiis Melbourne will be remaining on strategy, despite a dip in the latest radio ratings, with Australian Radio Network (ARN) national content director Duncan Campbell saying that the network won’t “react to one bad result”.
Campbell was speaking to AdNews following the third radio listener survey of the year, known as Survey 3 of the GfK Radio Ratings, which saw Kiis Melbourne's breakfast team Matt and Meshel fall 1.2 percentage points to 5.5% audience share.
Melbourne has been a focus of the Kiis network this year, with ARN looking to replicate the success of its Sydney format, featuring powerhouse Kyle and Jackie O.
But despite the dip, Campbell says the strategy for the station will remain the same.
“The numbers aren’t what we would like and I’m not going to walk away from that, but confidence in the strategy remains very high,” Campbell says.
“In Melbourne it’s a case of remaining confident. We never, as a network, react to one bad result. We’ve had some movement forward this year, and this is a step back, but here is no trend to back that up.”
Previously, Campbell told AdNews that the initial focus of the Melbourne strategy was to position it ahead of Nova’s new Melbourne show and then increase the gap in order to be able to take on market leaders FoxF . He says despite the fall, that plan is still the aim.
He also says the station should benefit from a marketing push, launched last week with a new TVC and video campaign, which was deliberately held back through the year until the show’s strategy was where it wanted to be.
Triple M head of content Mike Fitzpatrick, whose Hot Breakfast team topped the FM breakfast ratings in Melbourne this survey, and was followed by stablemate FoxFM, says the Melbourne market has been the “crown jewel” for Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) this survey.
“Triple M’s Hot Breakfast is now the heritage show in the market. It’s coming up to its eighth show in and our listeners are pretty much welded on there,” Fitzpatrick says.
“FoxFM’s Fifi and Dave have been able to improve what they’re already offering and to be the most cume station in the country - really there is daylight between second and third.”
The other unexpected result for ARN was WSFM in Sydney, which saw long time FM number two Jonesy and Amanda drop behind Nova’s Fitzy and Wippa, which Campbell says was “completely unexpected”, but that he expects a lag effect in WSFM’s marketing to push the station up again.
Nova group program director Paul Jackson says the jump in breakfast was a huge boon for the station.
“They’ve had a fantastic day,” Jackson says. “They’ve also had Sarah, their producer, being there a bit more with them and they have a more conversational style with the show. They’ve won the 25-44 female demo outright and with the competition in Sydney it’s fantastic.”
While the news was positive in breakfast, it was a little less so in drive, with long-time FM number ones, Kate, Tim and Marty, appearing behind Kiis’ Hughesy and Kate for the third time this year.
But Jackson says he “doesn’t have any concerns in Sydney”.
“We’re not doing anything different. They’ve got a great show across the country their neck and neck with Hamish and Andy for the national share position.”
In Sydney, SCA’s 2dayFM had a small victory with breakfast show Rove and Sam picking up a 0.3 percentage point jump - the first for the station since Kyle and Jackie O left it.
Hit Network head of content Gemma Fordham says the plan for that station to is build on it’s consistency and make some noise in the marketplace.
“It’s all about the slow steady growth for us. We still have a long way to go but it’s steps in the right direction,” she says.
“It’s actually quite hard to do that but that’s the thing for us now it’s the consistency. The show is sounding great and it will continue to sound better and better, but now for us it's really about making as much noise in the market to pull the audience away from the shows that they’ve been listening to for years and get them to give the guys a go.”
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