A matter of listening to the listeners
You can't build a radio station to your own specs and expect it to work.
A decade or so ago, somebody in Southern Cross Austereo’s office down south, no doubt bolstered by the success of its Triple M brand, decided to change the name of Brisbane’s B105 to Hit 105.
It didn’t end well. Within a few years, SCA issued a mea culpa, said they had “listened to the listeners” and returned the B105 name to the airwaves.
It’s no coincidence that B105 has now reestablished itself as Brisbane’s leading radio station, with a strong lead for Stav Davidson, Abby Coleman and Matt Acton in the all-important breakfast shift.
B105’s nearest competitors, Nova, KIIS and Triple M, all hire breakfast talent who are well known to Brisbane audiences (perhaps too well known, but that’s another story) and who know the city and their listeners well.
Through music and comedy, and informed local references, they are taking their audiences on a journey they enjoy that sets them up for the rest of the day, which is largely networked.
Meanwhile, Brisbane’s least successful commercial radio station (with the exception of niche operator SEN 693), 4BC, is losing listeners with a strange hybrid product and an apparent determination to go down a path where audiences clearly don’t wish to follow.
The idea of taking on the breakfast team of Laurel Edwards, Gary Clare and Mark Hine when 4KQ closed a couple of years ago seemed like a good one. Although it also hired 4KQ music director Brent James (who left earlier this year), 4BC wasn’t committed to the golden oldies hits that were a big part of KQ’s success (relative to BC). It still wanted to be a news-talk station in the image of parent company Nine Radio’s very successful stations in Sydney (2GB) and Melbourne (3AW).
After breakfast, it was back to news and talk with Bill McDonald, then Sofie Formica and Peter Gleeson.
Laurel, Gary and Mark were on a loser to nothing. And Bill had the unenviable task of having to turn the ship around every day and pilot a new course towards a Sydney-style news-talk in the mould of his predecessor, Sydney shock jock Ray Hadley.
Meanwhile, 4BH — also owned by Nine but operated by Victoria-based Ace Radio — picked up another veteran Brisbane DJ, “Barbecue” Bob Gallagher, who spent many years at 4KQ, to host breakfast and usher in a day of the classic rock tunes that the old KQ audience love.
You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to know where the oldies audience went.
As of ratings survey 5, released on Tuesday, Gallagher now has more than twice the brekkie audience of 4BC, and 4BH has overtaken KIIS to become Brisbane’s fourth most-popular station.
So, what message will Nine Radio take out of all this? In my opinion, it will be the wrong one.
They will, inevitably, remove the breakfast team and replace them with a more news-focused person or persons who will do a lot of opinionating.
I think — and I hope I’m wrong — they will double down on the right-leaning talk format that wasn’t really working for them before they hired the ex-KQ trio and is clearly not working across the day in the station’s current incarnation. (Blaming the dire ratings in the drive shift, for example, on the breakfast show would be a huge mistake. Listeners are no longer glued to one station, they will move the “dial” to hear what they want to hear,)
As I’ve noted elsewhere, if politically conservative talk doesn’t rate when there’s a hapless Labor government in power, how do they expect it to work after October when the LNP will almost certainly take over?
The thing is that the honchos at Nine know Brisbane people and the Brisbane radio market are different to those in Sydney and Melbourne (which, as they well know, are different to each other). They have research and lots of anecdotal evidence telling them things they don’t want to hear, because it doesn’t suit their narrative about the potential audience demographic or how talk radio “should” be.
As I understand it, there are few older heads behind the scenes, meaning decisions that affect listeners 60+ — and Nine is kidding itself if it is aiming younger with a talk format — are being made by producers with no memories of the people and events that shaped the experience of that generation. Vietnam, the SEQEB strike, Danny O’Dibble, Don Seccombe, Brian Tait, Babette Stephens, the Whisky Au-Go-Go bombing, Warana, A Crook Affair, Whitlam, Bjelke-Petersen, Transformers, the Saints, the Go-Betweens, Carol Lloyd, the Tortilla, 1982 Commonwealth Games, World Expo 88, the Fitzgerald Inquiry, “Sin Triangle”, Ahern, Goss … it’s all a mystery.
Having pumped a lot of money into the Brisbane radio operation, which for too long was just a relay for 2GB, Nine is now squandering that investment by making one bad decision after another.
If I were a Nine shareholder, I’d be pretty annoyed. As a potential listener, long-time fan, and one-time employee (that, too, is another story as yet untold), I already am.
Disclosure: Brett Debritz used to work at 4BC and, very briefly in a paid capacity (but for many years as an unpaid contributor) at ABC Brisbane. Neither seem at all interested in his views — although he did get a nice, good-humoured shout out from international radio consultant and Podnews editor James Cridland this week.
Astute commentary on 4BC in general. I don't necessarily agree that young staff are the problem. They are following orders from above. I think the big bosses in Sydney should hired you as content manager to change the lineup. Move away from conservative talk back. Just cut that off. It's not the way forward for Brisbane. It would be a shame if 4BC became a zombie station that broadcasts 2GB but the Sydney bosses have no vision. Currently Laurel, Gary, Mark's show is the station scapegoat. It's unfair. They generate the most ad revenue of any show.