The Washup: Survey 1

Staff Writer

If you haven't yet seen the results from Survey 1, see them here.

After the result came out I spoke with Duncan Campbell (Group Content Director of ARN) and Craig Bruce (Head of Content for Southern Cross Austereo), to discuss their take on the first lot of numbers for 2013.

Craig Bruce (SCA)

Mark: Good to get this first result through I bet Craig ?

Craig: It’s just good to get some results so we’ve got a place to start. Up until now you can theorise about what’s happening. Whilst survey 1 is not the end of it, it’s just the start of it – at least we get a number.

Mark: Before we get into the results, gotta say I had a listen to the first Dan & Maz Show last night (Today Network 6pm – 8pm) and really enjoyed it.

Craig: They were excellent weren’t they. I listened until 7 o’clock and I couldn’t have been happier. We’ve thought for a long time, as a combination they’re outstanding but Dan is a genuine star in the making. He’s a genuinely funny performer and he thinks differently about the world which we love and we couldn’t be more excited about the prospects for the show and I think it launched really, really well.

Mark: To the results and 2Day is probably the stand out for you in Survey 1 ?

Craig: Yeah Sydney was the stand out of all the numbers, having said that overall I’m really happy with the results. 2Day had such a strong result overall – across the workday, breakfast, drive and then to be supported by such a strong 2MMM result with 25-39 and 18-24 numbers. We’ll see what they look like when we pull them out and look at the male side of it.

We’ve made a concerted effort to contemporise Triple M’s music position on the eastern seaboard, Fitzy (Mike Fitzpatrick) has done an outstanding job putting that together. Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne have all had terrific results today in all of the demo’s that we were hoping to build some gains from.

You look at the triple j numbers and they’ve had their typical survey 1 result. We think there’s still some growth to come with those 25-39’s that might be sharing between triple j and Triple M.

Good positive signs for SAFM. We think that’s going to turnaround really quickly. I think that result is just the tip of the iceberg. There’s a lot of work to do on SAFM and we’re coming from a long way back but it was a good positive first up result.

It’s an unusual situation where both SAFM and Nova’s breakfast shows are both new. Normally you’re going up against an incumbent and if that was the case this year then SAFM would have been up against Dan & Maz which would have been a much more difficult proposition. We think we have the best of the 2 new shows in the Adelaide market, we think that Michael (Beveridge) is going to generate a new, fresh audience for us that we haven’t seen for a long time. I’m really bullish on SAFM this year and it needs to perform better, it has struggled for a number of years but we’re confident it will bounce back.

The 5MMM (Adelaide) result is, as it has been for much of last year, a really strong 25-54 male product which has been our aim from the start and we think we’ll have that kind of number out of today’s result as well.

I’m really confident about the Triple M network on the eastern seaboard. NRL is still to come which is exciting. If you look at our Monday to Friday results we sit in early 6’s so if we can get some TSL on the weekends we think we can pull a number with a 6 in front of it somewhere across the course of the year.

We’re totally comfortable with how things have started for the year.

Duncan Campbell (ARN)

Mark: With survey 8’s result rolling into today’s numbers for the first time, has it delivered what you expected ?

Duncan: From us not a lot of surprises, a couple of minor disappointments but overall it’s a positive book for us.

Mark: WSFM the stand out for you ?

Duncan: In terms of individual stations you’ve got WSFM, and the performance of Jonesy & Amanda which is fantastic. You’ve got Adelaide which is very strong. A 16.8 share and # 1 overall and #1 overall in breakfast is fantastic. Also Brisbane, which is a very competitive market. For 97.3 to increase its lead over the other guys (Nova) is good and to be #1 in breakfast is also a great achievement.

Getting back to #1, I’ve always said is where we expect that station to be. To get the breakfast result too was fantastic.

Mark: Are you happy with the breakfast and drive changes to Mix Sydney ?

Duncan: Yeah I am happy actually. There’s always audience churn when you change a breakfast show which we’ve seen over the last couple of years. So this is really no different. I think what’s different this time is the strength of the cume which has grown.

We haven’t had a cume at Mix Sydney above 600,000 for a good 9-10 months. So to see a 36,000 cume increase and have it sitting at 628,000 puts us in a very good position when we finally convert that cume and continue to grow it. You obviously want to see increases but realistically we’ve done no marketing for the new show yet or indeed for the station. It’s where we expected it to be. I would have liked the share to be flat and maybe nudge up a little but the cume figure gives us confidence.

Melbourne was probably a little bit disappointing to be honest but again very strong cume’s – 831,000 so it’s a strong station in what is, in terms of breakfast, I think one of the most competitive in Australia. You’ve got some very strong breakfast shows down there on all stations. Daytime figures at Mix Melbourne remain very strong so we just need breakfast to be a more consistent performer this year and we’ll get the results we want.

You know we sometimes don’t shout loud enough about our achievements but we have a very methodical approach to what we do. It’s based on a very sound strategy and the focus for us this year is about execution of that strategy and we’re being very pedantic about that.

It’s nice to have a first look at the numbers and gives us a good level of confidence as we head into the rest of the year.

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