SCA’s Craig Bruce wants to know which horse is dead in Brisbane

If you haven't yet seen the results from yesterday's survey 2, see them here.

You can also see the press releases here, ups and downs here and my chat with Charlie Fox, CD of the newly crowned #1FM station in Sydney, WSFM here. Phew……

During the day I also caught up with Craig Bruce, Head of Content at Southern Cross Austereo, here's what he had to say about survey 2 for the network. We started with the obvious, Sydney….

Craig: Overall for 2Day still a very good result. Breakfast #1FM by 1.3 and certainly in front of Nova by 2 or 3 points.

That WSFM wave going into that book was somewhere in the 10’s which was a bit of an unusual spike and that’s come through for them but we’re 0.1 off so let’s see how it plays out. We’re not particularly concerned about 2Day given Kyle & Jackie O’s strength in the market and we think we’ve had a very strong 6-8 weeks on the air so I’m confident we can get that back.

Mark: 2Day’s main losses came in drive (down 1.8) and nights (also down 1.8). Is the nights result mainly due to the recent programming changes in that shift and listeners getting used to that ?

Craig: Dan & Maz were only on-air for a few weeks in that book, so insignificant. Those numbers in nights bounce around but, to be honest, we’re not looking at nights as a ratings impact, never have.

Drive was disappointing in Sydney no question, strong in other markets, it held up very well in Melbourne and up in Brisbane and Adelaide. It’s always difficult when you’re a national show to get a clean sweep in all the markets but it needs to be better in Sydney. The other thing was cume going down in breakfast and drive on 2Day FM, if we can get a bounce back on Kyle & Jackie O in the next 6-8 weeks, drive will be a beneficiary of that as well.

Mark: What's the main win for you this survey then ?

Craig: I think the #1 headline for us was B105. I remember Duncan (Campbell-ARN) and Paul (Jackson-dmg) saying at the start of the year that Brisbane was a two horse race so I’m not sure which one of their horses is dead but B105 is #1 Monday to Friday, #1FM in breakfast (right) and it has momentum. It was always interesting to hear that comment at the start of the year because clearly it’s not and it’s probably a reminder to not get ahead of yourselves when it comes to radio ratings.

We’ll take that one and see what we can do with B105 over the next 6-12 months and a massive result for Mickey Maher, just absolutely fantastic. He’s gone in there and done a brilliant job.

Mark: The other big story for SCA is Triple M across all 4 cities.

Craig: Melbourne is sensational. To have a 7.5 and we still haven’t gone into football. Having said that, 2MMM, they’re both really strong numbers and 4MMM up 4 points 25-39 which is where we were hoping to get some gains. Hard to separate those 3, they’re being really well programmed and we’re happy with how they are coming together.

Mark: And you’d be happy to see SAFM’s gains, especially in breakfast ?

Craig: Yeah the breakfast result was fantastic, reflective of what we’re seeing from an audience perspective. I think the show’s developing really nicely but a lot of work to do there, it’s very early stages. It’s unusual for a new show to go up a couple of points in its first 2 surveys. Triple M Adelaide also a strong result, breakfast into the high 9’s and some really good 40-54 gains.

Adelaide’s excellent, both stations up. Brisbane’s excellent, both stations up, 2MMM and 3MMM outstanding numbers, Fox flat and down a little in breakfast which is a work in progress for us in how we keep that show fresh. The cume numbers are very strong we just need to add some sticky content into that show.

But overall a pretty good set of numbers.

** at the time of speaking to Craig the Perth result was yet to be released **