Sydney radio ratings: 2GB’s Ben Fordham wins breakfast slot, ABC falls
2GB breakfast host Ben Fordham has won the radio ratings again in the second survey since replacing Alan Jones while ABC has dropped overall. Here are the latest results.
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Ben Fordham has enjoyed another major victory in his fledgling breakfast radio career.
A changing of the guard from Alan Jones to Fordham in the all important breakfast shift has continued to pay off for broadcaster 2GB with the station the clear leader in the latest GfK radio ratings survey.
Fordham’s 6am to 9am shift softened slightly on the last survey to register an impressive market lead of 16.1 per cent (down 1.2 percentage points) of the breakfast market.
“All we can say is thanks for listening,” Fordham said. “We’re striving to be the best we can band it’s nice to know Sydney is on-board. Ratings will go up and down but there’s solid support and we don’t take it for granted.”
It wasn’t such good news for the ABC with the station overall across all timeslots dropping 2.2 percentage points to a share of 8.3 per cent of the Sydney market and breakfast hosted by Wendy Harmer and Robbie Buck dropping 1.9 points to a share of 10.6 per cent.
Elsewhere in breakfast, KIIS duo Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O Henderson trumped the ABC to register the second highest share of that shift at 10.7 per cent, a rise of 0.5. Behind KIIS came in smoothFM with Bogart Torelli the biggest jump for that shift with a 1.3 percentage point rise to an 8.5 per cent share.
In mornings, 2GB’s Ray Hadley jumped 0.4 percentage points to a leading share of 17.2 per cent of the market. Hadley’s nearest rival is smoothFM with its share of 12.3 per cent (up 1.5).
“I am astounded by the figures today,” Hadley said after revealing 2GB has been the number one station in Sydney for 129 surveys.
“According to them (management) the world was about to change earlier this year when things changed a bit and they quite haven’t done that. It is a very gratifying day I can tell you,” he said live on air on Thursday.
“What we do now, we don’t dwell on what happened, we have got one more survey to get through between now and December. We get our noses back on target and get into that survey and that goes for all of us.”
Across the board, 2GB regained some of its older listeners (65+) after a small drop in the last survey.
The station took a generational gamble on replacing veteran broadcaster Jones with the much younger Fordham. It was feared that Jones’ stalwart listeners would desert the breakfast timeslot but it appears they have stuck to the dial with Fordham bringing a new generation of younger listeners.
Station newcomers Deb Knight and Jim Wilson recorded slight drops. Replacing Fordham in the afternoon drive shift, between 3pm and 6pm, Wilson registered an 8.8 per cent share, a drop of 0.3. Former Today show host Knight came in at 10.3 per cent, down just 0.2 percentage points.
It is the second survey since GfK was forced to do a hard restart, putting on hold ratings for several months due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has made figures even more unpredictable.
In drive, smoothFM’s Byron Webb was the most listened to show with a leading 11.3 per cent, a jump of 0.9, ahead of ABC Sydney at 10.2 per cent, followed by KIIS duo Will McMahon and Woody Whitelaw at 10.1 per cent (up 0.1).
Nova 96.9s Kate Ritchie, Tim Blackwell and Joel Creasey dropped to 7.6 per cent, shedding 1.3 percentage points. The decline comes after the departure of Marty Sheargold from Nova’s drive team.