Radio sees some cyclonic action
Alfred boosted listener numbers, but will that be reflected in the ratings?
In case you doubt radio’s utility of a source of information during natural disasters, 4BC has released some interesting stats about listening to its 24-hour live and local Cyclone Alfred coverage.
According to content manager Siobhain McDonnell, digital streams were up 79% — giving some weight to my argument that mobile delivery is the way of future — and total listening hours were 45% higher than the same period last year.
(A word of caution: percentages can be misleading if you don’t know the base numbers. For example, going from one listener to two is a 100% increase.)
I understand that ABC Brisbane, which was simulcasting on 106.1FM as well as its usual 612AM frequency, also had a substantial — quite probably higher — uptick in digital streaming and other listener metrics.
Disappointingly for all the stations that put a huge effort into emergency broadcasts, much of that listening was during a non-ratings period. Survey coverage only kicked back in after a one-week break on March 9 — the morning after the cyclone made landfall.
Any effect the Sunday and Monday listening had in terms of the official ratings won’t be known until the second survey results are released on April 29.
The results to be released on March 27 will only cover listening from January 19 to March 1, but they will reflect changes made — such as the addition of Nikki Osborne to the Nova Breakfast line-up — or not made — Kyle Sandilands is yet to achieve his stated aim of snatching KIIS Breakfast in Brisbane from Kip Wightman and Robin Bailey (now with Corey Oates) — since 2024.
Meanwhile, a radio historian reminds me that flooding at the start of 2011 meant the abandonment of survey 1 in Brisbane because researchers couldn’t distribute enough diaries to make the results statistically valid.
However, ABC Brisbane won the all-important Breakfast ratings for the rest of that year, suggesting floods can be good for news-talk stations. Two years later, when minor flooding hit the River City at the start of the year, the ABC Brisbane also had a good year ratings-wise, including a clean sweep in Breakfast.
P.S. Cyclone Alfred also led to higher television viewing figures, including in the extended lead-up to the main event.
Boss’s big challenge
Among the many big questions facing Matt Stanton, the newly confirmed permanent CEO at Nine Entertainment, is: What to do with Nine Radio?
There are some both inside and outside Nine who think the radio network, which includes Brisbane’s 4BC, is surplus to requirements. The thinking is that it can already produce audio content for online distribution without the need for expensive broadcast stations.
Others, including me, reckon the radio assets just need to be better managed and more closely integrated with the TV news division, so Nine can deliver strong news, information and opinion content across all established and emerging platforms.
The creation of a dedicated Streaming & Broadcast division is seen as a first step towards that.
But what’s really should be at the top of Stanton’s agenda is to finish the work required in the wake of last year’s culture review, which revealed that harassment and bullying was rife throughout the organisation — especially in the radio division.
Otherwise, he will be letting down the many good current and former employees who suffered at the hands of their colleagues and the weak senior managers who allowed the situation to continue.
And if doing the right thing isn’t motivation enough, he should know that to let things continue to fester will almost certainly continue to create further legal, financial and reputational challenges for Nine.
Disclaimer: Yada, yada, yada, Brett Debritz’s views may be informed by the time he spent working in Brisbane media, including at News Corporation and Nine Radio.