Gold’s Christian O’Connell has reclaimed the top spot in Melbourne breakfast FM radio

Gold’s Christian O’Connell has reclaimed the top spot in Melbourne breakfast FM radio while former ABC Melbourne Radio host Virginia Trioli made up ground in her final survey.

Gold FM’s Christian O’Connell and ABC’s Virginia Trioli both notched up ratings wins.

The latest radio ratings survey has thrown up a mixed bag of results with more peaks and falls for key markets.

In the all important breakfast timeslot, Gold FM’s Christian O’Connell has surged ahead to reclaim the top FM spot.

O’Connell notched up a 3.8 percentage point jump to take his audience share to 12.2 per cent.

That saw him overtake Fox FM’s Fifi, Fev and Nick who were stable on a 9.5 per cent.

They were followed by KIIS FM’s Jase and Lauren with an impressive 7.9 per cent and Smoothfm’s Mike Perso and Nikole Gunn on a solid 7.8 per cent.

Gold FM’s Christian O’Connell has reclaimed the all important FM breakfast timeslot.

Virginia Trioli stood down as host of ABC Radio Melbourne’s breakfast show last month.

3AW kings Ross Stevenson and Russel Howcroft continue to dominate the city’s breakfast morning radio, ending the latest ratings period with a 21.7 per cent audience share — a slight 0.6 percentage point fall from the last survey.

Former ABC Radio Melbourne Mornings host Virginia Trioli clawed back lost ground, adding 0.6 percentage points to close out her time with a 8.7 per cent audience share.

Trioli left the morning show on September 15 and has been replaced by former ABC afternoon Drive host Raf Epstein.

The latest GfK survey ran from July 9 to September 16.

One in five Melbourne morning radio listeners tune into Ross Stevenson and Russel Howcroft. Picture: Jason Edwards

3AW dropped slightly in every market while ABC improved across breakfast (8.1 to 8.7), mornings (7.5 to 7.7), afternoons (4.9 to 5.1) and drive (6.7 to 8.1).

SEN declined in most markets, dropping significantly in mornings with Gerard Whateley, from 4.1 to 2.8 per cent.

Gold FM was up in drive and afternoons particularly, surging to the top in both, ahead of 3AW.

In afternoons, 3AW was still fourth, having had rotating hosts since Dee Dee Dunleavy was sacked and departed in June.

This 6th survey comes ahead of the Australian Commercial Radio & Audio (ACRA) Awards taking place in Sydney on October 14.