Out on a high: Radio king Ray Hadley reclaims his throne

Ray Hadley can retire on a high after jumping back to the number one position in the 2GB mornings timeslot in the final radio ratings survey of the year.

Ray Hadley can retire on a high after jumping back to the number one position in the 2GB mornings timeslot in the final radio ratings survey of the year.

Hadley rose 2.5 percentage points to a leading share of 13.7 per cent, his nearest rival smoothfm coming in just behind at 13.1 per cent, up 1.9 percentage points.

The news comes a day ahead of Hadley’s final show on radio after a career spanning several decades.

His two decade winning streak (160 consecutive wins) came to an end last survey.

“It is a fantastic way to finish my career and the year, and I was in a fairly, I guess, sombre mood when we were beaten, and then after I had time to think about it, I thought it was not a bad run, 20 years at number one, and we got beaten,” Hadley told listeners this morning.

“And what we have to do is pay tribute to those and we’ve got to be gracious losers as well as gracious winners. It means we’ve won 161 out of 162 (surveys) and that’s how I’ll finish my career as a winner.”

Retiring on a high … Ray Hadley. Picture: Justin Lloyd.

In this eighth and final GfK radio ratings survey period, Hadley’s colleague, Ben Fordham, also finished the year on a high, regaining the mantle as Sydney’s number one breakfast radio show.

Fordham in the all important breakfast timeslot jumped 2.8 percentage points to a leading audience share of 15.1 per cent, ahead of last survey winners KIIS 106.5s Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O Henderson on 13.5 per cent (up 0.4).

Gracious Sandilands sent Fordham a text message to congratulate him on the win.

“You’re back bro ... hahah congats. xxx,” the text read.

Then came Brendan Jonesy Jones and Amanda Keller on 10.5 per cent (down 0.8) and smoothfm’s Bogart Torelli on 10 per cent, up 1.7 percentage points.

Torelli’s newsreader Ron Wilson this week announced he will host a new breakfast talkback show on 2SM. It’s understood that the station will soon announce the personality who will replace John Laws on the morning show.

Across all timeslots and all stations, smoothFM has jumped to the top overall with an audience share of 12.3 per cent, a rise of two percentage points.

“Today’s results are a truly fantastic way to end 2024,” Smooth Network Head of Programming Peter Clay said.

“To be the Number One FM stations in both Sydney and Melbourne as result we’ve been striving to achieve, so to say I am delighted on behalf of the team is an understatement.”

That’s followed by 2GB on 11.8 per cent, up two percentage points, and KIIS in third place at 10 per cent (up 0.1).

It is the final survey for which WSFM will be known by that name with the station having a major change in 2025, when it will be called Gold 101.7, its third name change since the station launched as 2WS in 1978.

Ben Fordham also regained pole position on breakfast radio. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

WSFM dropped from its number one overall position to 9.6 per cent, down 1.3.

ABC Sydney saw a drop across all day parts with the station shedding 1.3 percentage points to a 6.2 per cent audience share. It comes after several presenters announced that they will not be part of the line-up in 2025, including Sarah McDonald, Robbie Buck, Simon Marnie, and Richard Glover.

There has been huge movements at Southern Cross Austereo’s Triple M this past few weeks, where Mark Geyer was sacked from the breakfast show, which he co-hosted with Mick Molloy.

In 2025, Molloy moves to Melbourne to host Triple M breakfast, while Beau Ryan, Natarsha Belling and Aaron Woods take on Sydney breakfast.

For their final survey, Geyer and Molloy registered a rise of 0.7 percentage points to a 5.8 per cent audience share.

Triple M overall registered an audience share of 5.6 per cent of the Sydney market, up 0.8 percentage points.

Drive show, The Rush Hour, hosted by Gus Worland and Jude Bolton, which was also axed, rose by 0.5 percentage points to a 5.6 per cent share.

Back to Kyle and Jackie O, the duo’s Melbourne ratings have gone down again.

Jackie 'O' Henderson and Kyle Sandilands Melbourne ratings were down again.

Earlier this year they launched breakfast down south to much fanfare and prediction of a ratings success.

In this final survey of the year, they registered a five per cent audience share, down 0.1 of a percentage point.

In cume, they also went backwards, dropping 24,000 listeners to 404,000, a fair way behind FM market leader Nova on 717,000, up 67,000.

Not coincidentally, their competition on Nova is the former KIIS breakfast show they took over with Jason Hawkins and Lauren Phillips defecting to Nova, where they scored this survey an 11.5 per cent audience share (up 0.5).