Irrelevant ABC only has itself to blame for listener exodus

The ABC’s move to distance itself from conservative white males has made the national broadcaster irrelevant and shows just how out of touch station bosses are.

Steve Price says the ABC only has itself to blame for record-low radio ratings.

ABC talk radio around Australia is in serious decline and Melbourne deserves better.

Melbourne’s ABC radio was once the jewel in the broadcaster’s crown, but now audiences have deserted its out of touch and politically correct preaching, as it becomes irrelevant. That’s sad.

While programming 3AW through the nineties and early noughties the ABC breakfast news bulletin used to give me nightmares.

At 7.45am every weekday we would see quarter-hour audience numbers shift from 3AW to 3LO.

The current affairs half-hour AM followed that news bulletin and for many years that 45 minutes of commercial free news and current affairs gave the ABC a clear advantage over us.

This happened despite Ross Stevenson with the late Dean Banks and then the legendary John Burns being clearly number one in every other quarter-hour of breakfast.

It used to drive us mad.

But then some genius at the ABC in recent years decided to drop the generational news program at 7.45am.

I was long gone from 3AW when that happened, but current management at that station must have thrown one hell of a party or financed a long lunch.

It would have to go down – along with the decision by Network 7 to let Neighbours go to Channel 10 – as the worst programming decision in history.

This might, to some, look like a weird job application from me.

Trust me: it’s not, I’m very happy with my various newspaper and television jobs right now – and the ABC would never have me anyway.

ABC radio in Melbourne – and the same goes for ABC Sydney – are in serious trouble and it’s their own fault.

Someone in the taxpayer-funded ABC, probably based in Sydney, decided they needed to chase a younger audience.

Huge mistake.

ABC Melbourne’s talk station has just recorded historically low audience numbers and are shedding listeners at an alarming rate.

At the end of 2021 off the back of Covid, ABC Melbourne drew 10 per cent of the radio audience and by last week that had nearly halved to 5.8 per cent.

Now, I know how to read a ratings survey result, and just on raw numbers the vast majority of ABC Melbourne’s audience is still over the age of 65.

Audiences have deserted the ABC’s out-of-touch and politically correct preaching. Picture: Mark Knight

In that age bracket (65 plus) for at least 15 minutes, a total of 240,000 people in Melbourne tune in to ABC Melbourne each week.

Put simply, that number is the total audience across the seven-day week aged over 65.

That compares with 342,000 listening to 3AW and when you look at the demographic under that – the audience aged between 55-64 – it’s an even uglier story for the national broadcaster.

Only 99,000 Victorians in that 55-64 demographic are attracted to taxpayer-funded, commercial-free ABC radio across the week – that’s appalling.

If you look at the younger age brackets the numbers barely register so you wonder how that decision to chase a younger audience is going.

In fact, it’s a total disaster and a management decision that seems to abandon the people who are your actual core audience.

I suspect with the AFL season now up and running some younger audience will tune in but only for live sport – AFL, or cricket in summer – and not the foundation programs of breakfast, mornings and drive.

Breakfast radio on ABC Melbourne – once a strength when hosted by Red Symons – rates 7.3 and is beaten by Smooth FM, Gold FM and Fox. By comparison 3AW draws a massive 22.7 and has been even higher.

In raw numbers, AW breakfast attracts 643,000 listeners, the ABC just a slim 323,000, or half.

That’s embarrassing and unsustainable. The ABC Breakfast host is a nice young stand-up comedian called Sammy J who by accident I appeared with on The Project last Monday.

Typically, it seems Sammy’s comedy targets are anyone who is conservative, older than forty, and a white male, which he made clear during his little skit on Monday’s Project appearance.

Does management at ABC Melbourne really believe older white males who are politically conservative are not their audience and if they do, they shouldn’t have a job.

Just before anyone else points this out I know a thing or two about running an unsuccessful, little-listened-to talk station.

I was on air and programmed the failed MTR in 2010 and 2011. We lasted 18 months and ended up in receivership and had to turn the lights out.

MTR though, wasn’t funded by Australian taxpayers as the ABC is to the tune of $1.07bn annually.

That funding that will be increased by the incoming Labor Government to the tune of $83.7m a year on top of existing funding.

Federal Labor will also dump an extra $32m into international services over four years.

This funding pours into the ABC year on year with no examination over whether Australians are getting value for their money from their ABC.

Virginia Trioli has not yet returned to morning radio as the station’s rating slumped to a record low.

ABC Melbourne isn’t the only ABC station in trouble. ABC Sydney has lost a third of its audience in a year and like Melbourne attracts less than 6 per cent of the audience.

Like Melbourne they have chased and failed to attract younger audiences. Anyone who thinks people under 40 are seeking out AM radio for their news and information is a fool.

Even powerhouse 3AW only attracts 83,000 people aged between 25 and 39 years old, while poor old Aunty is down to 54,000 total.

ABC radio needs a massive overhaul and it’s talk station needs to provide the audience that pays the bills – you and me — more balance.

Not one broadcaster at ABC Melbourne has any balance, and management has failed to give its audience an alternative view other than its left-leaning group think tank.

Whether it’s a debate on The Voice or Climate Change or various other social issues, they all sing the same tune.

Maybe what the ABC needs to do is concentrate, as it once did, on making ABC Melbourne a station for all and trim its broadcasting assets from the five radio stations it broadcasts down to one or two.

Sadly, I think it’s a lost cause and Melbourne and Victoria are the poorer for it.

Dislikes

Greater Western Sydney’s first game of the season drawing a crowd of just 7000.

Reports of drug crime being out of control in St Kilda – still.

Melbourne City Council using Town Hall to push social issues including pushing a Yes vote for the Voice referendum.

Plans to allow extended alcohol licencing hours in the CBD at the same time public drunkenness ceases to be illegal.

Likes

Yarra Bend golf course on Sunday and the booming game of golf on a hidden Melbourne gem.

NSW Labor leader Chris Minn’s electric powered campaign bus breaking down because they forgot to charge it.

Speculation interest rate rises might be put on hold for now.

Renewed debate on the impact of head injuries and its connection to mental health issues - our previous and current AFL stars deserve protection.