Melbourne Radio Ratings 2023 Survey 1: 3AW and Gold star again

Posted on 16 March 2023

Fox a big improver too, as KIIS sees recent gains fall away

Radio Ratings Melbourne
GfK Survey 1 2023, Survey Period: Sunday January 15 to Saturday February 25

UP: 3AW +1.5
DOWN: KIIS 101.1 -1.8

3AW 16.6% (15.1%)
Cume: 876,000 (+11,000)
2022 results: Best/worst
Best 10+ 15.9% (17.6%)
Best Breakfast 22.8% (20.1%)

Another strong start for the station that refuses to falter. As the Sydney Nine Radio station feels the pressure from elsewhere on the dial, 3AW didn’t miss a step with 10+ share close to 16% for a second successive year in this survey. Similar for breakfast for Ross and Russel with another start to the year over 22%, this is for third consecutive year. Biggest movers were drive with Tom Elliott and the evening combo of Scott Hayward (Money News) and Denis Walter. Even weekends posted a good gain well before the footy season starts. Share 65+ jumped 4.2 to 38.9%, well ahead of Gold under 10%.

Gold 104.3 12.4% (11.9%)
Cume 1,313,000 (+22,000)
2022 results: Best/worst
Best 10+ 12.0% (11.4%)
Best Breakfast 11.2% (9.7%)

Best start to the year for Gold in recent Melbourne radio ratings and a share of 12.0% equals the best result from 2022. The Christian O’Connell Show remains a tower of strength on 11.5%, the best result for the team ever. Morning and afternoon were also up, but the numbers eased ever-so-slightly in drive and were down 2.3 in evening. Gold maintains clear leadership 40-54 with 17.7% ahead of the much-improved Fox in that demo.

101.1 Fox FM 9.8% (8.9%)
Cume 1,328,000 (-70,000)
2022 results: Best/worst
Best 10+ 9.6% (7.8%)
Best breakfast 9.6% (7.4%)

Fox has signalled it is game on in the Melbourne FM market with its best share in any survey since mid-2019. The breakfast result for Fifi, Fev and Nick is that team’s best and the best for Fifi and Fev since breakfast was in double figures back in 2019. The station is awash with good growth including a jump of 1.5 and 2.6 in morning and afternoon, and a more modest lift of 0.1 for Carrie and Tommy in drive, closing the gap to Gold. Fox has regained leadership with listeners 25-39 pushing KIIS out of top spot and 40-54 ballooned from 7.0% to 12.0%.

smoothfm 91.5 9.3% (8.8%)
Cume 1,174,000 (+16,000)
2022 results: Best/worst
Best 10+ 9.4% (7.3%)
Best Breakfast 7.8% (6.1%)

In a survey where the spotlight will be rightly shining elsewhere, smoothfm 91.5 has done pretty well too. smooth is one of the four FM stations to report growth yet the gap between it and Fox widened a little. smoothfm breakfast, now just with Mike Perso, lifted 0.2 to 7.4%. The big moves were for at work listening with morning up 1.6 to 10.3 and afternoon up 1.9 to 10.6%. Drive climbed 0.3 to 8.4% while evening took a hit, dropping 3.3 to 8.2%. smooth performed well in its key demos – 40-54 up 0.6 to 9.5% and 55-64 up 2.9 to 11.6%.

Nova 100 7.1% (7.5%)
Cume 1,168,000 (-88,000)
2022 results: Best/worst
Best 10+ 8.0% (7.1%)
Best breakfast 9.5% (7.5%)

An overall small fall was driven largely by falls in afternoon (-0.6) and evening (-2.3). The station did well avoiding a loss of breakfast share with the new Ben, Liam and Belle program keeping nearly all of the previous early morning crowd. The crew from Adelaide have started in Melbourne on 7.3% which is close to where Chrissie, Sam and Browny were for six of the eight 2022 surveys. Station high is 9.3% in drive where Ricki-Lee, Tim and Joel are #3 FM behind Gold and Fox. The station jumped most 18-24 with share up 4.5 to 11.9%, ranking it third behind Fox and Gold.

KIIS 101.1 FM 6.6% (8.4%)
Cume 1,190,000 (-65,000)
2022 results: Best/worst
Best 10+ 8.4% (5.6%)
Best Breakfast 8.1% (5.4%)

Some of the good growth from 2022 has slipped away for the start of the new year. The good news is cume is still over 1.1m. The other good news is that it’s also the station’s best survey one result in recent memory. The numbers are down on what happened in the back half of 2022 though. Breakfast with Jase and Lauren managed to keep share bubbling away over 7%, but it was elsewhere the audience checked out. Morning, afternoon and drive were down 2.2, 2.5 and 2.8 respectively. A crowd of listeners 18-24 went missing with share down from 18.1% to 10.2%. Also softer was 25-39, down 3.2 to 12.1%.

105.1 Triple M 6.1% (5.7%)
Cume 761,000 (-41,000)
2022 results: Best/worst
Best 10+ 7.3% (5.0%)
Best breakfast 6.3% (4.0%)

Share is building back after a soft end to 2022. This still the best start to a year for the station 10+ since 2019 and breakfast too posted a modest improvement to 5.2% compared to its first two surveys of last year which were both under 5%. The star performer though was afternoon with share up 2.1 to 8.1%. Share was up 25-39 and 40-54 although Triple M isn’t top three FM in either.

SEN 1.8% (2.3%)
Cume 330,000 (-28,000)
2022 results: Best/worst
Best 10+ 3.0% (1.3%)
Best Breakfast 3.4% (1.3%)

The station was down slightly in breakfast, morning and afternoon, but drive and then evening bucked the trend. Evening is the new ratings champ thanks to the cricket from India with share up 1.5 to 3.5%.

3MP 1377 1.5% (1.9%)
2022 results: Best/worst
Best 10+ 1.9% (0.6%)
Best Breakfast 1.1% (0.3%)
Cume 126,000 (-38,000)

Breakfast got the wobbles with share down 0.3 to 0.6%. Share in afternoon (2.3%) and drive (1.8%) are the station high points.

RSN 927 1.2% (0.5%)
2022 results: Best/worst
Best 10+ 0.9% (0.4%)
Best Breakfast 1.4% (0.4%)
Cume: 84,000 (+14,000)

A jump in cume was joined by increases in share in all dayparts. Afternoon and evening weekdays perform best on 1.3%, although they are overshadowed by weekend on 1.7%, a solid lift from 0.9 at the end of 2022.

Magic 1278 0.9% (1.4%)
Cume 114,000 (-10,000)
2022 results: Best/worst
Best 10+ 1.6% (1.0%)
Best Breakfast 1.3% (0.5%)

Three of the four AM minnows in the Melbourne radio ratings were down this survey and Magic was one of that trio. Breakfast has slipped to just 0.4% while at the other end of the day evening sits on 1.4%. Share was hammered in all dayparts, none more so than morning which dropped from 1.7% to 0.7%.