‘Getting urgent’: ABC Radio National audience continues to collapse

One of the ABC’s flagship programs is continuing to haemorrhage listeners, as the national broadcaster urgently reviews its radio operations.

The ABC’s flagship radio program has continued to plummet in the ratings, averaging as low as “just 1000 listeners” in one capital city.

The third GfK radio ratings survey of 2023 released on Tuesday saw KIIS FM’s Kyle and Jackie O delivering a record audience share in Sydney and talkback station 3AW dominating in Melbourne.

But it was more bad news for the ABC, which in March launched an urgent review of its capital city radio stations in a bid to arrest a dramatic decline in audience share, particularly in the all-important breakfast and drivetime slots.

Media commentator Tim Burrowes from Unmade Media noted that ABC Radio National’s five-city breakfast audience was now “below 50,000”.

“You have to wonder how low an audience needs to get before something changes,” he wrote.

“At ABC Radio National, Patricia Karvelas’ share of the breakfast audience has shrunk again. She now commands just 1.5 per cent (yes, 1.5 per cent) of Sydney listeners, 3.1 per cent in Melbourne, 2.7 per cent in Brisbane, 1.6 per cent in Adelaide, and 0.4 per cent in Perth.”

Burrowes said the Perth RN Breakfast number represented “an average of just 1000 listeners — the lowest that can be recorded without returning an asterisk”.

RN Breakfast host Patricia Karvelas. Picture: Aaron Francis/The Australian

“In the evenings in Perth, RN actually gets the dreaded asterisk,” he said.

“The ABC’s review into its radio operations is getting urgent, even if public broadcasters move slower than their commercial counterparts. The ABC also argues that it does better on podcasts. However, despite its promises (including yet another announcement back in March) it’s yet to join the Podcast Ranker. The fourth ratings survey comes arrives a little sooner than usual, on July 11. I wonder whether change will have occurred by then.”

But the ABC has hit back, with a spokesman saying that analysis “grossly misrepresents” the situation.

“To judge RN Breakfast’s performance solely on its average audience figure, based on a quarter hour, grossly misrepresents its listenership and how that listenership engages with the program over three hours each morning,” he said.

“RN Breakfast continues to be hugely influential, reaching just over 300,000 listeners in the five capital cities across each week. Once you factor in its total national broadcast audience, that figure rises to around 430,000 people.”

Barrie Cassidy and Patricia Karvelas speaking at RMIT. Picture: Supplied

The spokesman added that of all the ABC’s radio networks, RN “has been the most successful in growing its on-demand and podcast audiences”.

“On-demand listenership at 480,000 streams weekly is not captured by GfK ratings and now make up just under half of the station’s total streams on ABC platforms,” he said.

“Furthermore, RN also delivers 2.3 million podcast downloads weekly across ABC and third-party platforms like Spotify and Apple, further displaying its strength on digital, thanks to its flagship programs, including RN Breakfast, leading this growth. Overall, RN reaches around 860,000 people nationally across the week.”

The Sydney Morning Herald reported in March that commercial executive Dr Cherie Romaro had been hired to work with the ABC’s internal advisory group on how to improve programming.

Dr Romaro, who has worked at commercial radio stations including Triple M and 2Day FM, told the newspaper it was not a cost-cutting exercise.

“It is a challenge given the choice and crowded audio offerings audiences can access at their fingertips,” she said.

“My involvement is to give an external perspective and provide added value to be able to assess the entire audio offering nationally and define where ABC Radio can grow their audiences and reconnect with listeners who have left us.”