Hadley’s shock ratings dive after retirement announcement

Days after announcing his radio retirement, veteran broadcaster Ray Hadley has lost the ratings for the first time in two decades.

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Days after announcing his radio retirement, veteran broadcaster Ray Hadley has lost the ratings for the first time in two decades.

The 2GB mornings host, who celebrated his 70th birthday in September, came in third in his timeslot behind WSFM and smoothfm.

Hadley registered an audience share of 11.1 per cent, down 1.3 percentage points, behind Ugly Phil O’Neil on WSFM at 12.7 (up 0.5) and smoothfm steady at 11.2.

In the same timeslot, ABC Sydney with Sarah Macdonald on the mic jumped 2.1 percentage points to a 7.5 per cent share.

Hadley last week made his shock retirement announcement on air as he called time on his 50 year career.

“As winners for 20 years we’ve tried to be dignified and today we will try to deal with this in the same way,” Hadley told listeners.

Ray Hadley announcing his retirement on air at 2GB in Pyrmont. Picture: Rohan Kelly.

“It is not the end of the world, just the end of a record-breaking run. It is a bit hard to complain when you get beaten in the case that we’ve been beaten today when you’ve had so much success over such a long period of time and it would be completely lacking in grace not to congratulate Ugly Phil O’Neil for his victory today.”

Nine radio boss Tom Malone and Nine Entertainment acting chief executive Matt Stanton delivered the news to Hadley.

“I must say that given I made the announcement last Thursday, the first thing I said to Matt and to Tom was, ‘crikey, I’m glad I did it last Thursday, it would look a bit crook if I did it today wouldn’t it, spitting the dummy and sour grapes’,” he said.

“But there are no sour grapes attached to this, I can assure you when I made the announcement I made last week, today and the ratings were not in the back of my mind.

“To one point, it is good to have the monkey off my back and I am happy that we have achieved 160 (consecutive radio ratings survey wins) over 20 years.”

A total of eight GfK ratings survey results released in a year, the final for 2024 being December 17.

In the all important breakfast timeslot, Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O Henderson remained in the top spot ahead of 2GBs Ben Fordham.

Kyle and Jackie O came in with an audience share of 13.1 per cent (down 0.6) with their KIIS 106.5 show, ahead of Fordham at 12.3 per cent (up 0.1).

The ratings pain continues in Melbourne though for the Australian Radio Network, which launched Kyle and Jackie O into the the breakfast slot earlier this year.

The show dropped again, down 0.1, to a share of 5.1 per cent. But, in some positive news, the sampling of their show slightly increased with the cumulative data showing an increase of 8000 listeners to 428,000.

Nova’s Melbourne breakfast team of Jason Hawkins and Lauren Phillips jumped 1.4 to an 11 per cent share while talkback station 3AW led the timeslot with a 20 per cent share despite a drop of 2.5 percentage points.

Coming in third in Sydney is WSFM duo Brendan Jonesy Jones and Amanda Keller on 11.3 per cent, up 0.7 of a percentage point, followed by ABC Sydney at 8.9 per cent (down 0.2).

Kyle and Jackie O came in with an audience share of 13.1 per cent.

Mick Molloy rose 0.5 of a percentage point to 5.1 per cent on Triple M. The network last week announced he would be moving to Melbourne to take on breakfast there in 2025.

There has been no announcement about Triple M’s Sydney breakfast show plans.

A question mark sits over 2 Day FM breakfast slot with fill-in duo Jimmy Smith and Nathan Roye slipping 0.4 of a percentage point to a dismal 3.8 per cent.

The boys took over from Dave Hughes, Erin Molan and Ed Kavalee earlier in the year.

Overall across all stations and timeslots, WSFM triumphed at number one in Sydney with a 10.9 per cent share (up 0.2), followed by smoothfm steady at 10.3 per cent, KIIS 106.5 at 9.9 (down 0.9) and in fourth place came 2GB at 9.8 per cent (down 0.4).