Craig Bruce: ‘it’s close all around the country’

If you haven't yet seen the results and analysis from survey 5, see it all here.

You can also see the press releases here and the ups and downs here.

Here's what Craig Bruce, Head of Content at Southern Cross Austereo, had to say about survey 5 for the Today and Triple M network.

Mark: First to Sydney and it's a close battle between 2Day FM (7.7%) and WSFM (7.3%). Breakfast is also tight with Kyle & Jackie O on 9.5% and Jonesy & Amanda on 9.0%.

Craig: Yeah it’s super tight there at the minute. I can’t remember it being that close for a long time. Our view is that, we still have #1 ranked stations in Sydney and Melbourne which is a good thing. We have a #1 breakfast show in Sydney (2Day FM) and Melbourne (Triple M). We understand the numbers are less than we would like them to be but we are still the leaders in those markets. I still think we have the leading brands, by that I mean, out of all the stations in Sydney and Melbourne ours are well placed to continue that #1 ranking that we have.

Mark: It’s also the closest it has been for a long time between Hughesy & Kate (Nova 100) and Matt & Jo (Fox FM), with only 0.1 separating the two.

Craig: We’ve talked before about the fact there’s 4 or 5 really good breakfast shows in Melbourne, Dave & Kate are one of them. Between Matt & Jo and Eddie they’ve definitely got their work cut out.

Mark: Triple M Melbourne are down 1.1 10+, were you expecting that drop ?

Craig: We were expecting that but it’s actually not bad when you pull it apart. We’re #1 25-54 All People, we’re a dominant #1 25-44 men, we’re #1 in breakfast. We’ve got our best run into the backend of the year with football finals so we think that number will improve over the next couple of books.

Mark: In Brisbane you have 1 up, 1 down.

Craig: Yeah not bad for B105, we weren’t expecting an up book but we have certainly turned that around which is positive. The market is close, you’ve got a very strong Nova who are off a little. Steady for Triple M at breakfast, they’ve got some excellent workday numbers, I think we’re #1 across the workday as we are at 2MMM in Sydney.

So there are pockets of really good, positive news but just given the tightness of all the markets you just got to dig a little deeper to go and find them. I’m not looking for ‘hey we’re #1 with left-handed men living in Surry Hills’ but there are some positive big picture numbers. But from a share perspective it’s close pretty much all around the country.

Mark: Both SAFM and Triple M in Adelaide are both on the same share (8.0) but both overtaken by ARN's Cruise 1323.

Craig: With 5MMM we expected a less than great result today and to trade out of that really quickly (staying flat) is a positive.

The gap between SAFM and Nova has closed so we’ll take that as a positive. There are some really good things happening on that radio station. It’s a work in progress, we’ve made some pretty significant music changes in Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane over the last 4-6 weeks that I’m hoping we will see come through over the next couple of surveys.

The story in Adelaide is from a Nova/SAFM perspective – Nova have 43.7% of the 10-17’s, SAFM has 20%. So there’s a bunch of kids listening to Nova. Then we’re tight 18-39. But you gotta have those 10-17’s to have a really successful CHR format which is what we want.

Mark: Are the music changes you’ve made in those 3 markets the ‘Fresh and First’ campaign ?

Craig: Yeah, it’s just more a reflection of the chart to be honest. We weren’t stuck in no mans land, but we weren’t as aggressive as we are now, making sure we are on the hot songs when we need to be. We weren’t doing a HOT AC format but we probably just took our time on a couple of hits here and there. It’s an active Top 40 format, not progressive or alternative, we can’t go down that path.

** at the time of speaking to Craig the Perth result was yet to be released **