Hutchy happy with SENQ journey so far
![](https://radiotoday.com.au/wp-content/uploads/CraigHutchison-2016-head-and-shoulder.jpg)
When a radio era ends – and a popular music station morphs into an entirely different format – you’re building from the ground up, so it can hardly come as a shock when that’s reflected in the first ratings survey.
But despite SENQ finding itself at the bottom of the Brisbane ratings heap this time around, Sports Entertainment Network Managing Director Craig Hutchison maintains an optimistic outlook, saying the team is very pleased with the beginning of the journey on 693AM.
The wall-to-wall sport offering replaced 4KQ’s popular classic music format in May.
In its final survey, 4KQ recorded a 9.4 per cent market share for the Monday-Sunday, 5.30am-midnight slot.
Under the SENQ banner, it’s plummeted to 0.4 per cent.
With parochial sport at its heart, Hutchison – in a Courier Mail piece – says there’s been tremendous support in the Brisbane market since the station launched.
“It’s great to be up and going in a ratings sense, with a good base to build from.”
“Our SENQ content is being consumed in many and varied ways, and it enjoyed record SEN Queensland numbers across the NRL and AFL finals series.”
“We are excited to keep connecting with Queensland sports fans, who have embraced having a 24/7 sports format across the state.”
Breakfast radio notched up a marginally better result for SEN at 0.5 per cent.
Full article here.
The local shows on here are brilliant. Having people like Pat Welsh, Ian Healy, Cam Smith, Scott Sattler and Ben Davis talking about Qld sport is great.
Remember it’s a COMMERCIAL RADIO LICENCE, the aim of the game is to make money, not to get a heap of listeners you can not commercialise.
What a joke. RIP 4KQ.
ACMA should hang their heads in shame for allowing this – actually MAKING this happen with the ridiculous and outdated 2 station rule. The 2 station rule actually kills stations and makes music radio formats less diverse. It’s even more ridiculous when the 2 station rule forcing the sale of 4KQ was applied using dubious overlap with the Ipswich and Sunshine Coast markets, rather than actually 2 stations in Brisbane. The result? Brisbane radio listeners lose out with 9.4% of the audience losing an iconic station like 4KQ, only to be replaced by this rubbish that nobody wants to listen to. Well done ACMA!