1 week ago
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The ABC has backed its struggling Melbourne breakfast presenters as the latest radio ratings revealed another steep decline.
In the fifth survey of the radio ratings year, 3AW* won the breakfast slot, with Ross Stevenson and Russel Howcroft maintaining their position at No.1 with a 19 per cent audience share, up 2.4 percentage points on the previous ratings period, helping propel the talk station back to the No.1 spot overall.
Melbourne ABC Breakfast hosts Sharnelle Vella and Bob Murphy have suffered another drop in the ratings.
Meanwhile, Kyle and Jackie O have notched up another small improvement, climbing to 6.1 per cent of the audience share, up half a percentage point on the previous survey.
However, ABC breakfast duo Sharnelle Vella and Bob Murphy suffered a drop from 6.8 per cent to just 5.5 per cent – more than half a percentage point behind Sydney duo Kyle and Jackie O, who landed with great fanfare in the Melbourne market on a rumoured $200 million, but have since fallen flat.
Award-winning former Channel Seven reporter Vella and ex-Western Bulldog Murphy replaced comedian Sammy J in the slot this year but have largely struggled to cut through.
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In the first radio survey of the year in March, the pair recorded a 6.3 per cent audience share, down on Sammy J’s 7.9 per cent in the previous survey.
But ABC head of audio content Ben Latimer was adamant the public broadcaster would continue to support the pair.
“Our Melbourne breakfast show with Bob and Sharnelle is very different to what we were doing last year with Sammy and compared to what else is on the market,” he said. “We have found two incredibly fresh voices who have already created strong rapport, based on audience feedback.
“Changing the breakfast show always has a big impact and it will take time to build – the other shows on 774 sound great and we’ll just keep working with the teams to find the audiences they deserve.”
Latimer said the ABC was well known for “giving things a chance to find their feet and give the audience a chance to build”.
Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O have enjoyed a slight increase in their Melbourne ratings.
In other timeslots, the news was better for Aunty, with improvements across all slots other than the weekend, which suffered a drop of 0.7 of a point.
Overall, the biggest winner was 3AW, which reclaimed its crown from Gold after the classic hits station reclaimed the No.1 spot for the first time since 1992 in the previous survey.
The talkback AM station jumped by 1.6 of a point to claim 13.8 per cent of the audience, while Gold was at 11.2 per cent audience share (down from 12.3), and back into the No.2 spot.
At No. 3 was smoothfm 91.5 with a 9.8 per cent audience share, then Fox FM and Triple M equal in fourth place with 8.2 per cent, and NOVA 100 with an 8.1 per cent audience share.
ABC Melbourne came in with a 5.8 per cent share of the overall audience, a small drop from 6 per cent.
*Nine is the owner of 3AW and this masthead.
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