Steve Price: Do radio executives actually know what they’re doing?

3AW reportedly told Dee Dee Dunleavy her termination was due to the station wanting to appeal to a younger audience, so where does that leave other hosts like Neil Mitchell?

If Dee Dee Dunleavy was let go because of her age, where does that leave 3AW’s other hosts?

Talk radio can be a brutal place to work as we saw this week at my old station 3AW.

Suddenly on Monday, afternoon host Dee Dee Dunleavy was no longer on air. On Tuesday this week her afternoon radio program rated No.1 in Melbourne in the third ratings survey of the year.

Dee Dee had been on air since the start of 2020, broadcasting through the long dark days of Covid, remotely from home.

She smashed her talk competition in the latest ratings, including the ABC where presenter Jacinta Parsons, like everyone else at the taxpayer broadcaster, is in awful decline.

Dunleavy beat all comers on FM and AM with a published 12.9 per cent of the available audience.

It’s slightly confusing because published figures don’t marry up with her actual time on air which was three hours from midday to 3PM. I suspect her real figure would be slightly less but it’s splitting hairs.

By comparison the talk stations she was directly competing with – the ABC and sports network SEN – rated 4.8 and 2.4 respectively. Combine the two and Dee Dee still smashes them.

Total audience numbers for the afternoon shift on SEN are 144,000, over at the ABC 202,000 while Dee Dee pulled in an impressive 388,000 people.

Former 3AW broadcaster Dee Dee Dunleavy. Picture: Instagram.

Mysteriously as we approach the end of the financial year and radio contracts are negotiated, Dunleavy obviously asked for a new deal for 2024 and beyond and was told we don’t want you next year.

Bravely, and with her reputation at stake, she told AW to jam it and walked.

AW is now owned by the Nine network who operate the 2GB talk station in Sydney, where their afternoon presenter Deb Knight went backwards during the same ratings period, only managing an 8 per cent share.

Knight was rated the fourth most listened radio show in Sydney in the Dee Dee timeslot, not No.1. Deb Knight, as far as I am aware, still has a job.

I should declare a couple of things here before my critics pile on.

First, I have never to my knowledge met Dee Dee Dunleavy.

Secondly, I presented afternoon radio on 2GB in Sydney until December 2019.

Ownership of the station changed hands during the six months I was doing that shift and new management wanted me to return to presenting nights. I declined and they paid me out the remaining 12 months of my contract.

I’m now completely out of talk radio and don’t work for any of these people but you just wonder if they have any clue about what they are doing.

Dee Dee herself was completely blindsided as far as I can work out and is having trouble processing what happened.

On social media she said: “I was having the time of my life in my job. I’m devastated that it has come to an end.”

Dee Dee is as Melbourne as you can get, a passionate St Kilda supporter, a proud mother and plugged into what makes this city tick. She’s a real girl from the ’burbs.

It was reported after she was shown the door that one explanation was that the Network was looking at appealing to a younger audience.

They have got to be kidding themselves.

3AW told Dee Dee Dunleavy her termination was because they wanted to appeal to a younger audience, so what then happens to the other older hosts? Picture: Jake Nowakowski

3AW breakfast hosts Ross Stevenson and Russel Howcroft. Picture: Jason Edwards

On those latest ratings figures 3AW, against all its major competitors including the lowly rating SEN, has the smallest audience aged between 25 and 39 years old.

AW’s strength – and I was program director there for 12 years between 1990 and 2002 – is its older audience. They are rusted-on and listen for long periods of time.

They currently have over a third of the Melbourne population tuning into radio aged over 65 years old (33.7) and over 20 per cent aged between 55 and 64 (21.4).

You don’t need to be a maths genius or radio ratings guru to see that 55 per cent of the people driving around tuned into 3AW are older than 55.

Dee Dee is 60 years-old, and right in the sweet spot demographic of 3AW.

If 3AW truly is chasing a younger audience with younger presenters, what then to do about the three males fronting their two most successful programs – Breakfast with Ross Stevenson and Russell Howcroft and Mornings with Neil Mitchell.

Stevenson is 65, Mitchell is 71 and Howcroft is 58 — hardly the youth brigade.

It’s a nonsense argument to prosecute that Dee Dee was let go because she was appealing only to an older audience when 3AW itself only appeals to an older audience.

Melbourne is lucky to have a talk station like 3AW and clearly their ratings success shows they are doing a lot of things right including their outstanding football coverage.

My experience though tells me the Sydney management has again underestimated and mis-understood the Melbourne audience. It’s different to Sydney’s 2GB just as Melbourne itself is different to Sydney.

How else could you explain how the top breakfast radio show in the Harbour City is hosted by a bloke who this week vowed to masturbate live on air if his show reached a 20 per cent share of the audience.

Grubby Kyle Sandilands also made disgusting remarks about his female co-host Jackie O that would have him sacked and shamed if he broadcast to Melbourne.

Good luck Dee Dee — you left with your head held high.

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