The other Brisbane horse owner talks Survey 4

If you haven't yet seen the results and analysis from survey 4, see them here.

You can also see the press releases here and the ups and downs here

Here's what Paul Jackson, dmg Radio's Group Program Director, had to say about survey 4 for the Nova and smoothfm network.

Mark: One of the key highlights for you today would have to be the #1 result for Nova 106.9 in Brisbane ?

Paul: Plenty of highlights. The Nova network is #1 Under 40 so we always look to that first but yes Nova Brisbane number 1 and having the cume of 500,000 is nothing short of fantastic. Over the long term we’ve seen a battle royale between ourselves and 97.3FM and the occasional other surge. I know we’ve made a joke before about it being a two horse race but we can see that, right now, it’s between Nova 106.9 and 97.3FM but you can never write anybody off. Jay Walkerden (PD) has been across every detail and everything they’ve been doing in the marketplace. It’s very much deserved and we hope to be in this position most survey’s.

Mark: In 3 markets – Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth – Nova is now well in front of their Today competitor, what do you put this down to ?

Paul: The strength of the breakfast shows in those markets is the reason that catapults the station forward. The focus locally in each marketplace is strong through the PD’s and Integration Managers, the whole setup is incredibly well executed. So we have great consistency now, we had one forced changed at Nova Adelaide breakfast but that’s gone brilliantly for us with Lewis & Lowe on a 12.3 share.

So we have really got, behind the scenes and on-air, settled performance in those 3 markets. That’s boding well and we have the upper hand at breakfast time and that kicks into the day. All things are coming together in those markets for us.

In Sydney and Melbourne the picture is not dissimilar. I would say upfront that you can look at Sydney breakfast (Fitzy & Wippa) a couple of ways – they’ve never gone particularly good in survey 4 when you look at the history in Sydney or Melbourne with men, maybe it’s a sporting thing. Year on year the numbers are good. There’s a real focus on a stronger breakfast performance out of Sydney which has seen better numbers before, however, listening to the show in recent weeks and months it feels like it’s in a good place. We’re broadly happy with it but expect a better number overall. I would also align the same comments with Hughesy & Kate at Nova 100.

Mark: smoothfm is up in Sydney and slightly down in Melbourne, how do you rate this result ?

Paul: I would say smooth is going brilliantly, but I would say that, coz I can now look at a year on year comparison. We’re 73% up in Sydney and we’re 46% up in Melbourne. We have exceptionally strong demo’s 35+, we have an exceptionally strong workday and very good weekends overall, certainly in Sydney. So where we expected to go well it’s gone brilliantly.

I’m painfully aware that the awareness is somewhere around 30% from our own research and we’d like to see that double that. We know there’s more to be done with awareness and marketing the station but in terms of coming in and scoring a very strong set of numbers, carving a niche that’s unique in the marketplace that’s also highly desirable with our audience and then delivering it consistently, we’ve now done that and we’ll look to grow that incrementally going forward.

Mark: We don’t often bring up Fiveaa but the station seems to be struggling at the moment with even Nova 919 close to overtaking them 10+, what do you think is causing this shift ?

Paul: The drive show numbers are up so we look to be doing okay for the footy part of what we’re doing but I do appreciate our nights are down and our breakfast show is a little bit further down again. Brad Hulme (PD) and team are putting a lot of work into Fiveaa at the moment and we fully understand where we stand. I feel very comfortable going forward with the plans that are now being put in place for it but certainly we have seen some slippage.

Mark: Do those plans involve lineup changes or is it more about execution ?

Paul: I just think the way we’re executing some of our output more than changes at this stage. The lineup is still very strong and in a hugely competitive marketplace the audience is being dragged around with so many various choices and some big numbers in demos that we are competing in.