SCA’s Matthew O’Reilly on Survey 1: “It’s good to see we’re getting reward for effort”

When it’s suggested to Matt O’Reilly that SCA’s had a pretty good first survey to kick off the year, he says with a chuckle “I would say very good, not pretty good.”

After all, what’s not to like? In Sydney, 2DayFM and Triple M both went up. In fact, 2DayFM saw growth across all day parts, including the Breakfast team of Nathan Roye and Emma Chow, in their first book as a duo following Jimmy Smith’s departure.

The Ms rose, both in share and cume. Breakfast with Beau, Cat & Woodsy went up a point.

In his post-Survey 1 interview with Radioinfo’s Steve Ahern, O’Reilly – SCA’s Head of Broadcast Content – Audio – says “It was really pleasing to open up the documents this morning and see that where we’ve applied our attention and focus is where we’re seeing results. And that is with the 25 to 54 Audience that Matters.”

“We put a really big focus on revitalising the Hit Network and just giving it a fresh sound probably around August last year,” he says. “And we’ve now seen all five Breakfast shows (go) up and Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide all saw growth with share and cume today.”

“So that’s good to see we’re getting reward for effort.”

“The other one for us today was Survey 1 for Heart and Heart Hits, which we launched on the DAB, which have exceeded the targets that we had on those stations.”

“We thought it would work and it would find an audience. It probably found one quicker than we thought it would, though.”

Of the churn in the Sydney Breakfast radio market – and the arrival of ARN’s The Christian O’Connell Show on the local scene – O’Reilly is circumspect.

“Look, it’s very early days,” he says diplomatically. “I guess what we’re focused on in Sydney is around what we can do to maximise audience, and there is a lot of change in Sydney. This book doesn’t factor in Fitzy, Wippa and Kate leaving, it also doesn’t factor in Kyle & Jackie O leaving.”

Overall, the evolving state of play in Sydney Breakfast is good news for SCA.

“We know audiences, they hate change,” says O’Reilly. “I don’t want to get too much into what our competitors are doing, but we really believe in a consistent, local line up, and I think this time around, it’s helped us.”

With the demise of the Kyle & Jackie O Show, O’Reilly believes there is great potential for SCA’s Hit Network to seize on pop culture.

“Kyle and Jackie O have owned that for the best part of 30 years. We see an opportunity to own that.”

And Emma Chow, says O’Reilly, is all over it.

“A lot of shows do pop culture, all to varying degrees. But what you can hear with Emma is when she delivers it, you can tell she loves it. She’s enthused by it, she’s passionate about it, delivers it really well, is engaged, knows her stuff. And yeah, we see it as a natural place for the 2DayFM Breakfast show to play, in and around pop culture.”

But at the end of the day, it’s not about trying to copy K & J.

“We’ve just got to do what we strategically think is right to get the maximum audience,” O’Reilly says.