Happy Christmas and New Year from Radio Today

From tomorrow we will be wrapping presents, putting them under the tree, planning Christmas lunch and stocking up the bar in preparation for the big day.

So we’ll be too busy to do much reporting over the next few weeks!

Just like you probably.

We will turn off our regular daily radio news alert emails until mid January so as not to clutter up your inbox while you are away.

If stories break, we will still cover them, but we may be a little slower than usual to get them published. But please keep sending us news to [email protected] and job ads to [email protected]

We wish you a Happy Christmas and a prosperous new year in 2025.

Our lead reporter Sarah Patterson‘s favourite story this year was Secret Confessions of a Radio Station Mascot.

“Purely for the fun factor,” says Sarah. “Poor Keith Fowler’s recollections of wearing the famous Fox suit and all the indignities associated with the job still make me laugh out loud.”

“You’d drop about three or four pounds in weight, because it got very hot,” Keith told me. “It was a bit heavy and it was kind of cumbersome. You weren’t allowed to take the head off if there were any members of the general public around, and you weren’t allowed talk.”

“Getting punched in the goolies basically came with the territory.”

“One of the most significant stories of 2024 was of course Kyle & Jackie O’s shockingly X-rated arrival on Melbourne’s airwaves, and the ensuing Breakfast radio wars which saw the triumph of the underdogs, Jase & Lauren.”

“An article earlier this year about community radio giving its commercial counterparts a run for their money generated an avalanche of comments and clearly touched a few nerves.”

“Gary Field, CEO of 94.1FM on the Gold Coast, told of how an increasing number of well-trained, well-respected broadcasters have discovered a new lease of radio life in the community sector, giving it a slicker, more professional sound.”

“And the recent story of Wendy Kermeen is a lesson to all of us about seizing the day.”

“Despite meningococcal disease robbing Wendy of eight of her fingers and all ten of her toes, she continues to thrive in her role as Senior Media Sales Executive at Radio Ballarat.”

“As General Manager John Fitzgibbon told Radio Today ‘Wendy has the ability to make you laugh and to change your outlook no matter what is going on and no matter how dark and dire things seem.’”

Sarah says “For me, the true joy has been in writing profile pieces, shining a light on the wonderful and talented people in our industry, both on-air and behind the scenes.”

This year we were busier than ever, publishing 1296 reports about the radio, podcast and audio technology industries. Next year we plan to expend to cover more audio technology stories as a result of your comments in our readership survey. Have you filled it in yet?

Our busiest months were February and November. February was due to back to work listener activities after the January school holidays ended, and November was because this year has been a particularly turbulent time for staff changes and redundancies.

In 2024 our readership has continued to increase, with 2.2 million page views in the past 12 months. On average our readers view 2 to 3 stories per visit. Our advertisers received good value from us last year, with 728,000 readers eyeballing their ads for about 1 minute 12 seconds per page.

Our most visited page is the front page, with 480,028 hits this year.

Our Jobs and our weekly Podcast article with teh embedded audio podcast are our next most read pages. Stories about the Melbourne radio Wars got over 40,000 visits and our ratings survey stories also received tens of thousnads of hits across the year. The passing of Max Rowley also featured in our top 25 most read articles.

These were our most read stories in 2024.

With this sort of readership and influence, do you advertise with us? If not, maybe you should! Email [email protected]

If you’re working these Christmas and New Year weeks, we hope things go well. If you have time off, have a restful break with those close to you and return fresh and energetic for another year in the radio, or podcast or audio industry in 2025.

Happy Christmas from the Radio Today team:

Peter Saxon

Steve Ahern

Serena Ahern

Wendy Whalley

Sarah Patterson

Jen Seyderhelm

Mayank Jain

Gbatemah Senah

and our various contributors from all parts of the world

We will be in holiday mode until 16^th January 2025, resuming just before the first survey begins.