In the second radio ratings of 2017 Nova Entertainment's Smooth FM station has taken out the top spot for total listeners across the Sydney market's commercial music FM offerings.
The station climbed 1.6 percentage points to take a healthy 9.9% share of the market – knocking last survey's winner, Australian Radio Network's (ARN) WSFM station, off the top spot.
WSFM instead dropped 1.4 percentage points, from an 8.4 % share to a 7% share. It now sits behind ARN's Kiis106.5 (7.8% share) and Nova 96.9 (7.5%).
Beyond commercial music FM radio stations, Macquarie Radio Network’s talkback show 2GB continues to win the overall total listening across Sydney with 11.6 % of the audience share.
Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) Sydney, which is normally in second spot overall, came in at third (now behind Smooth) with an 8% share, having shed 0.7 percentage points this survey.
Kyle and Jackie O continue breakfast dominance, but the gap narrows
Looking at the Sydney breakfast show spot overall, again 2GB takes out the most listeners across Sydney, with a 13.5% share, followed by ABC Sydney with 9.6%.
Zoning in on the FM breakfast slots across Sydney, Kyle and Jackie O continue their dominance with a 9.3% share, however this is a drop from last survey's 10.5% share and shows the narrowing of a gap between ARN and Nova Entertainment.
Nova's Smooth FM and Nova 96.9 both gained share in Sydney breakfast, equally sitting at a 7.3% audience share.
SCA’s Sydney 2dayFM breakfast spot, The Em Rusciano Radio Show with Harley Breen, continued to grow and this survey increased its share by 0.1 percentage points to take home a 4.1% share. SCA will no doubt be hoping it continues to grow, and not suffer the same fate as its predecessor hosts Rove & Sam.
Nova's big jump in drive
Across the 4-7pm drive time slot, Smooth FM jumped a whopping 2.7 percentage points from a 7.9% audience share last survey to a 10.6% share. Such a big jump is rare in radio. Just behind Smooth FM is its stable-mate Nova 96.9, with its drive time hosts Kate, Tim & Marty scooping a 10.1% audience share.
Hamish & Andy took over 2DayFM's national drive show in 2015, but seem to pull bigger audiences in Melbourne more so than Sydney.
ARN's Kiis hosts Hughsey and Kate, who last time around gained a 9.1% share in drive, dropped to an 8.7% share.
ARN's WSFM also lost listeners in drive dropping from an 8.2% share to 6.5%.
See here for: Survey one dust settles, radio networks ready for ratings round two
Sydney:
Melbourne:
Nova's Kate Tim & Marty catch-up to Hamish & Andy
In total listeners across Melbourne, Nova’s Smooth has again secured the most overall listeners. Last survey was the first time it has landed the top spot. It continues to climb with its Smooth FM show increasing to a 9.9% audience share, holding its top spot in FM stations. Smooth beat out SCA’s 101.9 Fox FM, which dropped for the second time this year to secure 8.1% share, down from 9.1% in the first radio ratings of the year.
Fox FM’s Hamish & Andy, who dominated Melbourne drive last year, have again fallen in audience share in drive to 10.3% share down from 11.7% in the last radio ratings. They now come in equal first place to Nova’s Kate Tim & Marty - also with a 10.3% share, enjoying a 0.9 point audience bump from 9.4% earlier this year.
The two programs are now ahead of Smooth FM which saw a small decrease in audience share to 9.6%. Perhaps viewers are less inclined to tune into Hamish and Andy as the duo are exiting radio at the end of the year.
SCA takes breakfast from Nova
SCA's TripleM had the largest breakfast audience on the FM band with an audience share of 8.0%, coming out in front of Nova’s Chrissie, Sam and Browny, who dropped to 7.6% audience share from 8.1% share at the beginning of the year.
The drop will be a blow for Nova. In the last survey the trio had a solid start to the year with a 1.7 gain to a 8.1% share whcih was Mebourne's largest breakfast audience on the FM band.
By growing their audiences in the 10-17 and 25-39 demographics, both Kiis and SmoothFM saw small increases in overall audience share in breakfast.
Brisbane:
Perth:
Adelaide:
Also, in case you missed it, ahead of this upcoming survey we spoke to the top execs behind the scenes, took a glance at the badges of honour from survey one and pondered what, if anything, is the missing story in radio? See here for more.
More to come ...
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