97.3 tops Brisbane radio ratings
Posted February 23rd, 2012 by debritz
97.3FM bolted away from the pack to led the field overall in the first official 2012 Nielsen radio ratings for Brisbane, ahead of 612 ABC, which picked up audience in all daylight shifts and convincingly won breakfast.
The ARN-owned 97.3 scored more than 14pc of the available audience, followed by 612 on almost 11pc, then Nova 106.9 (10.5), B105 (10.2) and Triple M (9.4). Then followed 4BC, 4KQ, Triple J and 4BH.
In the important breakfast market, Spencer Howson at ABC 612 won a whopping 15.1pc audience share, followed by 97.3's Robin Bailey, Terry Hansen and Bob Gallagher on 12.9pc, Nova's new blokey breakfast with Kip Wightman, Ash Bradnam and David "Luttsy" Lutteral on 10pc and B105's Labby, Stav Davidson and Abby Coleman on 9.7. They were followed by Triple M (which lost audience across the day), 4KQ, 4BC, Triple J and 4BH.
The combination of cricket and a new line-up saw 612ABC raise its audience in all shifts except evenings, where there was a small decline. 97.3 had huge gains across the day.
In Sydney, Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O's 2Day show dropped 1.1 points but was still the dominant commercial breakfast performer. It was soundly beaten by 2GB's Alan Jones and 702 ABC's Adam Spencer.
2Day, along with FoxFm in Melbourne, also dramatically lost share in its target 18-24 year old market (down from 20.3pc to 15.4 for 2Day) and in 25-39s. This is not good news for parent company Southern Cross Austereo, which has already taken a huge hit from an advertising boycott spurred by Sandilands' offensive on-air remarks about a female journalist last year.
That share of the young audience has directly transferred to 2Day's arch-rival Nova 969, although the breakfast audience seems to have gone to Triple J.
SC Austereo's Melbourne station FoxFM also had a poor survey. Both it and 2Day lost audience in the Drive shift to Nova's Meshel Laurie, Marty Sheargold and Tim Blackwell, but still managed to stay ahead of the commercial FM pack. In Brisbane, Nova lost Drive audience but still remained ahead of B105 and Triple M. 97.3FM won the Drive shift
Disclosure: Brett Debritz was a guest on two 612ABC panels during the ratings period.
Oh Spencer, you've done it again!
You called it Brett! You predicted a breakaway from the cluster and 97.3 made the first leap. Good call. I still say the Nova brekkie (which i listen to) will make inroads when the 2nd ratings comes around. They had ads going only last night!
However, none of the stations in the top cluster should be underestimated -- there's some great talent there. The good thing is that we now have more clearly defined differences between the contenders.
The other thing to bear in mind is that it's often decisions made in Sydney that will impact on ratings here. Let's hope they don't get it wrong for Brisbane audiences.