The Washup: Survey 8

Staff Writer

If you haven't yet seen the results from Survey 8, see them here along with analysis.

We spoke to Duncan Campbell (Group Content Director of ARN) and Adam Lang, CEO of the Fairfax Radio Network, to discuss some of today's results.

Duncan Campbell (ARN)

The big highlight for us is that Mix 101.1 in Melbourne has continued to perform very well with very strong cumes, the breakfast show has done well this year. In fact I just found out it’s the number 1 breakfast show for 25-54 females which is a great result for those guys. It’s #3 FM so the focus this year, which has very much been on Melbourne, has paid dividends for us.

Gold has also had a very good year, it’s not necessarily a great result this time around, but overall it’s had a good year.

97.3 bounced back to number 1 overall which is where we expect that station to be. Clear #1 25-54 which is great. In a very competitive market, Brisbane, and hats off to Nova and their performance this year but that battle will resume in 2013 with vigour.

Anything special going on in the workday at 97.3 to get the increases they did ? (Mornings up 5.8 and afternoons up 4.4)

Part of the book is a correction, we should have been performing better than we had done. We did a very strong promotion in ‘Mystery Voices’ which worked well.

The key focus for them was breakfast and the workday, I spent a lot of time with Barry Drinkwater, the local Content Director there, working on breakfast and also on ensuring that the workday promotion was running as efficiently as possible.

That station should be the number 1 station in Brisbane and has been for a good chunk of the year so it’s good to have it return to that position.

What were the other highlights for you Duncan ?

Adelaide is great, number 1 again, but the interesting one in Adelaide is Cruise which is ahead of SAFM 10+ so an interesting result there. Cruise is a very consistent station given the resources that it has at its disposal.

Jonesy & Amanda #2 FM in breakfast again and very solid throughout the year.

The poor performer for us has been Mix Sydney, which it has been all year, so it’s all about 2013 for us. We’ve got a new lineup next year, we’re working on the strategy and the positioning of the station musically, which we’ll do over the Christmas break.

I’m confident that Mix Sydney will be more competitive next year.

It has been one of the most competitive years for a long time. We’ve had very strong marketing presence from dmg and SCA and also Smooth entering the market. They’ve done well, better than we expected, but I think that format is still yet to settle and we’re seeing softening of their numbers in Sydney under 40 but they are a player so it’ll make for an interesting and even more competitive 2013 I think.

With this being the first time that the Survey 8 result will carry into Survey 1 next year, are you doing anything different to try and kick off the year strong ?

It’s good we have some healthy results on most of the stations to roll into next year but no real change across the Christmas break.

We’ll have the core product team on board very early in the year and we’ll also bring in our consultants as well. Last year the focus was on Melbourne, this time it will very much be on Sydney to make sure that station (Mix 106.5) performs better in 2013.
 

Adam Lang (Fairfax)

What are your key highlights from across the Fairfax group today ?

The strength of 3AW in leading our News Talk network and the drive of 96fm leading our music network.

With 96FM going from 4th to 2nd in Perth, you’d be happy that this result will roll into Survey 1 ? What was the station doing in the workday to see those lifts of 1.6 (mornings) and 1.5 (arvos) ?

Yes, very happy with the station performance overall and that we have a strong station to push into 2013. The result was driven by unique positioning, clear focus and great 96fm execution to Keep Real Music Alive in Perth.

Also a positive step in the right direction at 2UE. What do you believe will help the station maintain the momentum into 2013 ?

There has been a massive amount of energy and work going into the execution of 2UE 954 in Sydney. The momentum into 2013 will be maintained by unique positioning, clear focus and great execution.

We have recently announced our new show "A Sydney Morning with Paul Murray" broadcasting live Monday to Friday 8:30-11:30am from the heart of the Sydney Morning Herald at Fairfax  Headquarters from 14 January 2013 and there are more announcements to come.

See all the results and analysis here

 

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