Little to talk about for Sydney stations James Livesley
The election year and the end of the football season has led to a ratings decline among some talkback radio stations in their key demographics, the latest round of Nielsen Media Research radio ratings has revealed.
In the seventh survey for the year, recorded between July to October, Macquarie Radio Network’s Sydney station 2GB reported declines in its key demographics among 40 to 54-year-olds, 55+ and grocery buyers. However, 2GB was still number one in Sydney with an 11.1% share in all people.
Southern Cross Broadcasting’s 2UE also posted small declines among 55+ and grocery buyers.
Macquarie Radio Network program director Peter Brennan said the pattern of radio listening between 2GB and sister station 2CH, was typical of an election year. “We have observed a pattern of listening in this survey that is typical of any early election campaign, with listeners choosing a combination of music and talk. Our previous experience has been that as we move closer to polling day, listeners will increasingly choose to engage with our talk radio hosts to understand the issues.”
However, it was not all bad news for Sydney’s talk stations, with listeners opting for public broadcaster ABC 702, which saw increases in its key older demographics.
This pattern seemed to be replicated in Perth where Southern Cross’ talk station 6PR decreased across older listeners, while the ABC 720 rose among 55+ and grocery buyers. In Brisbane, Southern Cross had mixed results with increases among older age groups for talk station 4BC, but a 5.3 and 1.1 point fall among 55+ and grocery buyers respectively for its easy listening music station 4BH.
In Melbourne Southern Cross’ 3AW suffered falls among 25-39 and 55+, though increased in other key demographics. In Adelaide, DMG radio’s 5AA recorded the biggest increase among all talk stations across the country with an overall shareof 18.6%.
Michael Selden, communications trader at Ikon Communications, said that the talk radio average audience was marginally down, and offered his explanation: “This could relate directly to the football season finishing.” He added that among talk radio audience “it will be interesting what happens at the start of the next survey with the election on the door step”.
MRN’s golden oldies music station 2CH posted positive results in its key demographics. Starcom’ s investment director Melissa Hey noted that Australian Radio Network’s older skewed music station Mix 106.5 had also performed well against a pattern of decline for talk radio.
Meanwhile, among younger skewed stations, in the Sydney market Austereo’s 2Day FM was the second most popular station in the metropolitan area, though it posted declines of 2.1 points and 0.7 points among 18-24s and 25-39s respectively. Both Nova and Vega were steady in this market.
In Brisbane Nova posted a massive 12 point increase among 18-24s, while B105 reported a decline of 0.9 points. In Melbourne both Nova and Vega declined among 10-17s and 18-24s.
The often erratic teen demographic proved to be just that – in Perth Austereo’s 92.9 was up 11.4 points among 10-17s, compared with a drop of 9.8 points for Nova. The music station was also down among 10-17s in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
