SCA’s Matthew O’Reilly: “It’s been hard to get the Sydney audience to sample new shows”

Matthew O'Reilly. Image: LinkedIn

It’s been less than two months since Matthew O’Reilly was catapulted into the interim role as SCA’s Head of Broadcast Content following the departure of Dave Cameron.

“It all happened very quickly,” says O’Reilly, who continues to lead Triple M’s metro network whilst also overseeing SCA’s content leaders.

Speaking to Radioinfo’s Steve Ahern post-GfK Survey 5, O’Reilly is low-key in his assessment of suddenly being thrust into the expanded national role.

“Life just needed to go on. So I’ve just started doing things,” he says simply.

“I think three people have done the role in my 18 years with the company, so I know it doesn’t come around that often. I have great respect for the role.”

But there are obvious differences.

“When you’ve just got one station, you mostly care about what happens on that station. Same as when you’ve got one network.”

“As much as you care broadly about the company, you can’t help but be fixated on your patch of turf. So I guess the main thing is just considering everything from all directions and having a different understanding of where each station is at.”

“The simplest way to put it is – there’s a lot more stakeholders.”

O’Reilly says for SCA, there’s plenty to like about the latest survey.

Triple M is Brisbane’s #1 station, with Marto, Margaux & Dan the #1 Breakfast show, Triple M is Adelaide’s #1 station with Roo, Ditts & Loz #1 in brekky, while Triple M’s new afternoon duo Lu & Jarch have exploded onto the scene, snaring #1 with a 10.4% share.

The Fox’s Fifi, Fev & Nick is the second-most listened to Breakfast show in Melbourne, with 612,000 listeners tuning in.

O’Reilly says the Fox brekky team consistently wins on the ‘big’ moments (think The Underdogs and Brekky in the Burbs) and he doesn’t feel the need to tinker with it.

“We’ve got Amanda Lee, who is very capable as Head of the Hit Network, so I won’t be interfering too much with the Fox – I’m pretty happy with how it’s going.”

With Triple M now well and truly immersed in the pointy end of footy season, O’Reilly says “It’s a massive part of our DNA.”

When it comes to the call, Reilly says entertainment comes first, and this generally comes through Triple M’s pre-game programs.

He says Triple M puts a lot of effort into those lead-in shows

“If you don’t win the pre-game, you can’t win the actual call.”

With its catchphrase ‘The Audience That Matters,’ SCA continues its focus on winning the 25 to 54 demographic, which it has succeeding int doing for the 33^rd consecutive survey with a whopping 27.7% share.

O’Reilly acknowledges there’s some work to be done in Sydney, which he describes as a challenging market with set audience behaviours.

However, with ARN’s The Christian O’Connell Show being networked into Sydney Breakfast from next year and Jonesy & Amanda moving into Drive, O’Reilly looks forward to meeting these new challenges head-on.

“I think we [wouldn’t be] doing our job if we weren’t starting to think of capitalising on those changes,” he says.

But any strategies, he’s keeping under wraps.

“I’m not going to tell you what we’re doing,” he laughs. “But I think that would be a miss if we hadn’t started planning on how we best capitalise on that.”

O’Reilly knows only too well they’ll have their work cut out, trying to change listening habits.

“Nova’s been very settled, KIIS has been very settled, Gold’s been very settled.”

“It has actually been hard to get the audience to sample new shows.”

“That’s just the reality.”