Duncan Campbell on ARN’s 3rd year of growth

Staff Writer

 

If you haven't yet seen the results and analysis from Survey 7, see it all here.

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

During the day I caught up with Duncan Campbell, National Content Director for ARN, to get his overview of how they went in survey 7.

 

Mark: Yesterday, Duncan commented on the potential move to Mix 106.5 for Kyle & Jackie O (read here) but for ARN in survey 7 they had some big results in Brisbane and Adelaide and some varying results in Sydney and Melbourne.

Duncan: Overall it’s a positive one, I think we’re on track to record our 3rd year of growth 10+ as a network which no other FM network can claim. We’ve always had a very solid strategy and we’ve implemented that strategy methodically. We’ve obviously got challenges internally and also competitor challenges and they continue. Smooth is probably the biggest one in Sydney. For ARN we are growing this network and we’ll continue to do that but within that overall growth picture there are obviously some challenges by market that we continue to tackle.

Mark: Last survey we talked about the down result Jonesy & Amanda always seem to get in Survey 6 each year but this year it’s flowed into Survey 7 for them.

Duncan: Yeah they had a bad book last time, or wobbly if you like, and smooth obviously had a really strong book last time which has carried forward into this one. The reality is that smooth will settle back in survey 8 but congratulations to dmg and the growth they’ve had this year with smooth, but I do believe the numbers are slightly over inflated. But that doesn’t diminish the fact they are definitely on a growth trend.

WSFM will rebound in survey 8, they’ve had one of their best years to date and Jonesy & Amanda have had their best year ever. This is one of those competitor challenges I talk about, we will evolve WSFM and we’re in the process of working on that to ensure that it remains competitive next year. With Kyle & Jackie O leaving 2Day FM, that presents a huge opportunity for what will be the only heritage FM breakfast show in the market in Jonesy & Amanda, and for them to really take advantage of that next year.

Mark: Mix 102.3 are celebrating their 10th #1 survey in a row and their 30th #1 FM in a row, not too shabby.

Duncan: It’s really a market dominant station. That’s a credit to the breakfast show and the radio station. 2Day FM is really built on the Kyle & Jackie O Show but Mix 102.3 is built on a very solid music foundation as well as a strong breakfast show. When you combine those two things you get a really impressive result.

Mark: We don’t often talk about Cruise 1323, but in mornings for example the AM music station is #2 in the music battle, beating Triple M, Nova and SAFM.

Duncan: They’ve done a bit of work on Cruise across the workday and it’s probably had one of its best years in recent history as well. For an AM music station to be that competitive is impressive.

Mark: In Brisbane relatively flat for 97.3FM but #1.

Duncan: Yeah we’ll take that. We’ll end the year in a strong position as well. That’s a much tighter market. Nova continues to challenge and they’ve proved to be great competition all year but it’s nice to be ahead of them and I expect us to be in survey 8 as well.

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