Fresh and different approach pays off for Nine Radio

Putting a younger female voice into the Drive shift on a station whose audience traditionally doesn’t like change was always going to be a gamble, as Nine Radio’s Head of Content Greg Byrnes himself suggested at the start of the year.

But – after a baptism of fire for Jacqui Felgate – it’s a gamble that might now be paying dividends for Melbourne talk station 3AW.

Survey 1 of the year saw 3AW Drive fall 2 percent to an 8.2 share.

Several months on, and Felgate now reigns as the host of Melbourne’s No. 1 Drive talk program with an 8.5 share – up 0.1 on Survey 4 and her third successive survey share growth, reinforcing Byrnes’ belief that what Felgate brings to the airwaves is fresh and different, utilising her social media presence and savvy to be at the forefront of breaking news.

GfK Survey 5 delivered mostly pleasing results for Nine Radio’s stable of stations, with 2GB still #1 in Sydney and 3AW #1 in Melbourne.

But Brisbane’s 4BC saw its worst result in nearly two years. It’s 4.6 share in Survey 5 puts it in 8th place overall.

In a post-Survey 5 interview with our sister publication RadioInfo, Byrnes says that’s concerning.

“This is the third survey in a row where we’ve been down in Brisbane. We were prepared for this … obviously we don’t like to see those sort of results. Everyone up there is working hard to correct them and that will continue.”

As to whether he’s worried about on-air teams, Byrnes says “We’re forever looking at line ups across the board – it’s an ongoing process. It doesn’t start and stop.”

As for Nine Radio’s Olympics coverage, Byrnes believes the network achieved what it set out to deliver … true theatre of the mind.

Byrnes himself was on the ground in Paris for a week during the Games, overseeing the network’s coverage and acting as a sounding board for Nine’s radio teams.

“We had 18 people on the ground in Paris, and that many back here, including 5 commentators in our purpose built studio in Pyrmont.”

“We really went out of our way to put together an Olympics coverage like no other, and we like to think we pulled that off.”