Macquarie gambling on the star power of Alan Jones and Ray Hadley to boost Brisbane ratings

MACQUARIE Radio Network bosses are hoping the introduction of Alan Jones and Ray Hadley into the Brisbane market will jolt listeners back to 4BC. But can they do it?

Radio 2GB

MACQUARIE Radio Network bosses are hoping the introduction of Alan Jones and Ray Hadley into the Brisbane market will jolt listeners back to 4BC.

But with as few as 55,000 people listening to the embattled station’s drive show, they have a tough road ahead.

Prior to last week’s cuts, Ian Skippen and Loretta Ryan’s breakfast show was the highest-rating program on the network. But the first radio survey of 2015 reveals it was only listened to by a cumulative audience of 78,000 people each day.

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Patrick Condren’s mornings show was slightly lower with an cumulative audience of 62,000 listeners each day, while Clare Blake’s afternoon program audience was 64,000 listeners each day.

Spencer Howson’s top-rating ABC breakfast show has triple 4BC’s listeners and 97.3’s top-rating mornings and drive shows more than triple 4BC’s efforts.

Macquarie is gambling on the star power of Jones, whose audience is as high as 453,000, and Hadley, who’s cumulative audience is 313,000, to stem the ratings bloodletting at 4BC.

But media analyst Steve Allen from Fusion Strategy predicts the station could be disappointed.

A media analyst says Alan Jones may have trouble connecting with a Brisbane audience because talk back is local.

“We think radio, particularly talk back, is local,” he said.

“We can’t see how they can localise it enough and we don’t know if they will.”

Hadley has promised to broadcast from Brisbane two days a week, and while Allen thinks that could help, he said it probably won’t be enough.

And if they drop further with the introduction of Sydney presenters, it could spell even more disaster for 4BC.

“If they lose some audience, which we believe they will, it will affect the rate they can get in the market and it will mean it takes longer for advertisers to come around,” he said.

AM radio already has a problem attracting advertisers, particularly from media-buying agencies who are mostly staffed by people in their 30s who Allen says “aren’t listening to AM”.