Talking points
- In the fourth radio survey of the year, Triple J continued to shed young listeners.
- A lot of those listeners again headed to Smooth FM.
- Gold’s Christian O’Connell won the key battle for FM breakfast listeners.
- Stablemate Craig Huggins was the most-listened to presenter on FM radio.
Triple J’s grip on the youth market has taken another blow with its Melbourne audience share in the key 18-24 age demographic dropping 5.2 points, from a 14.4 per cent share to 9.2 per cent in the fourth radio survey of the year.
In the same period and demographic segment Smooth added 4.6 points, to climb to a 12.2 per cent share of 18-24-year-old listeners, while Triple M added 2.8 points (from 4.4 to 7.2 per cent) while Fox increased by the same margin, lifting its share of the 18-24 demo from 10.7 to 13.5 per cent.
Triple J has suffered another ratings decline among young listeners.Credit:Triple J
Across the board, Triple J’s average audience in Melbourne dropped from 23,000 to 19,000 listeners, a 17 per cent decline.
Its cumulative audience – a measure that counts as a listener anyone who has tuned in to a station for eight minutes within a 15-minute period at any time during the week – dropped from 624,000 to 548,000, a decline of 12 per cent.
The biggest drop in terms of total numbers came in the 25-39 demographic, where 66,000 fewer people listened to Triple J in Melbourne in this survey period, from April 17 to June 25, than in the last one.
The radio survey blues aren’t confined to the ABC’s youth network, however. The national broadcaster’s grip on older listeners was also loosened with ABC Melbourne dropping marginally across the board, down from a 7.3 per cent share of the week to 6.9.
Troublingly, the biggest dip came in mornings, where Virginia Trioli’s show dropped from a 9.4 per cent share to 7.5 while rival Neil Mitchell on 3AW (owned by Nine, which also owns this masthead) climbed from 17.5 to 19 per cent. Only Ross Stevenson and Russel Howcroft on AW’s breakfast slot, with a 19.1 per cent share, did better.
Men on top: Russel Howcroft and Ross Stevenson, who have presented the 3AW breakfast show since 2020Credit:3AW
In terms of audience numbers, the dip was even more marked, with Trioli losing an average 18,000 listeners, down from 71,000 to 53,000.
Triple M also lost big in the same timeslot, down by 14,000 listeners to an average audience of 33,000 from 9am to midday weekdays. The radio ratings measure timeslots rather than specific programs, so not all results correlate directly with particular shows.
The biggest average audience on linear radio belongs to Stevenson and Howcroft, with 145,000 listeners. Their nearest competitor was Christian O’Connell on Gold, who saw his audience rise from 75,000 to 86,000. His share was up by 1.2 points, to 11.2 per cent.
However, the most-listened to host on FM radio in Melbourne remains Craig Huggins. His morning show on Gold averaged 92,000 listeners after a 1.2 per cent rise to a 13 per cent share of the market.
Gold also scored a win on digital, with its Gold ’80s channel snaring a cumulative audience of 108,000 listeners on DAB+. That left it sharing top spot with TikTok Trending, with KIIS ’90s the next best with a cumulative audience of 88,000.
Email the author at [email protected], or follow him on Facebook at karlquinnjournalist and on Twitter @karlkwin
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