Duncan Campbell: “some inconsistent results”

If you haven't yet seen the results and analysis from survey 6, see it all here.

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

During the day I caught up with Duncan Campbell, National Content Director for ARN, to get his overview of how they went in survey 6.

Mark: Firstly to Sydney and WSFM. A rough result for the station. Interestingly, Jonesy from WSFM breakfast said in an interview with us this time last year…..

"for some reason we always have a bad survey 6 and I don’t know why – then we make it back in Survey 7 or 8." (more).

Is this it happening again ?

Duncan: Charlie Fox (WSFM PD) says the same thing. There’s no doubt about it, the result is inconsistent with what has gone before. When you look at the year to date average for WSFM, it’s 7.5, so 6.3 today is well below that. It’s one of those results which has come out of the blue.

Interestingly, if you look at smooth’s big increase, their year to date average is 5.7, so their 6.8 is well above their normal average. So, what you‘ve got is a very dynamic marketplace at the moment. I think the Australian landscape overall is competitive and within that, particularly in Sydney, you’ve got some inconsistent results this book. We’re not reacting to that at all. It’s not a real reflection of the radio station and I expect those losses to be regained by the end of the year.

Overall this book we’ve seen a drift back of some of that listening that was lost to AM last survey. If you look at the FM stations around the country, by and large, everybody’s had an increase. Each market has an exception. So for Triple M it’s Sydney that didn’t do as well as the other markets. Nova it was Brisbane that didn’t do as well as the other markets. For the Today network, Fox FM was the example.

Mark: Moving on from WSFM and onto Mix Sydney….

Duncan: It’s done pretty well. It lost a fair bit last time so to recover and remain fairly flat is a good result. That means we’ll be going into Survey 7 in a position we expected to go into last book, so we’ve recovered the losses.

Mark: A good result for Mix 106.5 drive, jumping over WSFM and Triple M in that shift.

Duncan: Rosso (left) has put a lot of work into that show. It’s a small team, they’re highly passionate and it has a point of difference. It’s a music intensive show, punctuated with Rosso’s personality and it’s a good result for him today.

Mark: To Melbourne, were you expecting the Gold result today (=#1 FM with Fox FM) ?

Duncan: I’ve always said the classic hits formats should be performing well. WSFM, except for today’s result, really does perform well. Gold is in a different position in Melbourne in terms of the football market is much stronger. For it to perform as it has today is a great result for us. It’s the first time since 2006 that Fox FM has not been a clear #1 FM which is great and we’ve also managed to take #1 25-54 which is the first time Gold has managed to do that since 2007. A very dedicated, passionate team working very hard there and the strategy has always been solid, it’s good to see that result come through today.

Mark: 97.3fm still right up there in Brisbane but 4KQ also had a good result today.

Duncan: It’s a good market for us, it has been all year with 97.3 but it’s good to see 4KQ also performing well. I expect that to be a solid market for ARN for the rest of the year. That 13.3 share puts us a good 1.3 points ahead of Nova so I don’t think its position will be under any threat for the next couple of books.

Mark: Finally to Adelaide and Mix 102.3 is still number 1 but slipped a bit BMAD and 40+ as well. Is that a re-settling do you think ?

Duncan: It had such a big peak in the last couple of books so that’s now just re-settling. For us we want to see that station around about a 15-15.5 so it’s a bit below where we want it to be but it’s still #1 overall and #1 25-54.

The Adelaide and Brisbane markets are a solid performance for us and it’s good to see the Melbourne market come more into play which is positive. Sydney remains an issue for us but overall for ARN it’s a consistent result today which, from my point of view, reflects the positive trends we’ve enjoyed over the last couple of years.

My philosophy with these results is you take a measured approach to them. I know we’ve had a lot of big statements being made after some of these surveys and when you look back over some of those statements, not a lot of them actually amount to anything. I know there’ll probably be a couple of big statements made today as well so let’s just see where it all washes out at the end of the year.