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ABC Radio claws back Melbourne listeners as Kyle and Jackie O sink

ABC Radio claws back Melbourne listeners as Kyle and Jackie O sink

The Age4 days ago

The ABC's Melbourne radio station has managed to claw back its audience share following the federal election and a record-low result in the previous survey.
ABC Radio Melbourne posted a 6.2 per cent share of listeners in the city, up 1.9 percentage points from the previous survey's low of a 4.3 per cent share of listeners in the city, the largest increase of any Melbourne station between March 9 and May 31 by far.
Its new breakfast line-up featuring former AFL footballer Bob Murphy and former Channel Seven reporter Sharnelle Vella performed particularly well, lifting its audience share by two percentage points to 7.6 per cent.
Meanwhile, the audience share of KIIS FM's breakfast duo Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O Henderson dropped by 0.7 percentage points to 5.1 per cent. Notably, survey timeslots do not always correlate precisely with program timeslots.
This is a reversal of the pair's gains in the previous survey result, when they lifted 0.7 of a percentage point in their largest spike since launching in Melbourne just over a year ago. The about-turn in their ratings fortunes comes less than two months after Sandilands threatened to pull their show out of Melbourne if it continued to perform poorly.
The ABC's Murphy and Vella breakfast duo leapfrogged Kyle and Jackie O in the breakfast slot (5.30am to 9am). ABC's Drive program (4pm to 7pm), hosted by Ali Moore, performed even better, increasing its share by 2.1 percentage points to 5.7 per cent. This brings it above its share in the same survey last year, which was 5.4 per cent.
Raf Epstein's Mornings show on the ABC was the only program not to lose share during the previous survey. It continues to make strides, increasing its share of listeners by 2 percentage points to 6.8 per cent. This also marks an improvement from the same survey last year, which posted a 6 per cent share.
3AW* lost the greatest share of listeners, though it still remains at the top of the ratings chart, beating runner-up and FM leader Gold by 0.7 percentage points. 3AW posted a 12.5 per cent listener share, down from 14.1 during the previous survey.

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