Smooth sailing amid all the industry hype

Amid all the industry noise and hype, Smooth FM continues to be radio’s quiet achiever.

GfK Survey 4 saw Smooth retain its position as both the #1 FM station in Sydney and the most listened to station, with a 1,287,000 cume.

In Melbourne, Mike Perso enjoyed another solid gain with Smooth’s More Music Breakfast.

Above: Bogart Torelli and Ron Wilson celebrating Smooth’s survey results this week.

Head of Programming Peter Clay says the station continues to resonate with listeners in every market, and these days across a wider audience, too.

In an interview with out sister publication RadioInfo, Clay says “When Smooth first started, I guess we were pigeonholed as an older demographic station.”

“Quite often we would get asked if we could have a bit of a broader demo for Smooth.”

As tweaks were made to make the station more relatable across a wider demographic, Smooth started picking up more listeners under the age of 40.

“All of a sudden, it had this resurgence with a younger demo,” says Clay. “Because good music is just good music across so many demos.”

“I think the research and programming that Paul Jackson and Kate Mason did back a few years ago really set Smooth on that new trajectory to appeal to a wider demographic than what we originally set out to achieve.”

Over at sister station Nova, the Breakfast team of Jase & Lauren had a blinder of a book, and Clay couldn’t be happier for them.

“Even thought I work for Smooth, I still keep across the Nova shows, obviously, but I feel that Jase and Lauren deserved that book, and it didn’t take away from any of the ratings that Smooth gained as well.”

“For a business, it’s lovely to see both Breakfast shows having a rise.”

Had he expected Kyle & Jackie O to post a better Survey 4 result in Melbourne than they did?

Clay says “You know what? There’s a lot of interest with Kyle and Jackie O, but sometimes you have to turn around and go ‘Is this just internally, us talking about it, or the actual listeners talking about it and knowing that it’s there?’”

“Sometimes I think we all, in the industry, talk it up or talk about it much more than the listeners actually do, and I feel it takes a lot of time for any new Breakfast show to resonate with a new listening audience, whereas Jase and Lauren carried over a lot of loyal listeners that they had built in that market, so Jase and Lauren’s result didn’t surprise me.”