Radio ratings news is often quite uneventful, but in the most recent set there was a shocking development in the FM station market, with SmoothFM being bumped from first place to THIRD place in Sydney by WSFM. Where is everyone getting their fill of those smooth, smooth tracks?
Anyway the other main point to come from the results is that there is unfortunate news for Triple J‘s latest round of all-male duo radio hosts, with the numbers showing that the new boys on the breakfast radio block Ben and Liam are falling behind in achieving what previous brekkie hosts Matt and Alex did last year.
Ben and Liam have been under a lot of pressure and intense observation to see exactly how they would fare as a young and relatively unknown duo trying to fill the massive shoes of their predecessors. The happily got a bit of a bump a couple of months ago when their piss-take of Triple M caused a splash, but it seems they are now struggling to match the market share held by Matt and Alex.
Compared to only their own past results, the boys had various hits and losses in different parts of the country. For example, in Sydney they now hold a 5.9% share, which is a really positive outcome as it is a gain of 0.8% since last month, but unfortunately is still a drop on Matt and Alex’s 6.6% a the same time last year.
They had a small bump in places like Brisbane and Perth, but again it was not enough to match the numbers of Matt and Alex last year. Melbourne is their toughest market (this holds true for all of Triple J) with the boys dropping a big 1.1% points to take them down to 3.7%, also falling behind Matt & Alex’s 4.4% at this same point.
In great news for them, their hometown of Adelaide has once again come through for them, becoming the the only place where they posted better numbers than Matt and Alex, scoring a 5.3% against Matt and Alex’s 4.6% at this same point of 2016.
One thing that is true is that Matt and Alex were given a lot of time to settle into the role and make it their own, and hopefully Ben and Liam will get a chance to do the same. We’ll be keeping an eye on the upcoming months.
