Kyle and Jackie O trounced by rivals in Melbourne’s breakfast war

ARN Media’s $200 million flagship program, The Kyle and Jackie O Show, has failed to grow its audience in Melbourne, posting a 5.9 per cent share in the second survey since expanding into the market.

Nova’s Jase and Lauren show, whose hosts Jason Hawkins and Lauren Phillips were sacked by KIIS FM to make way for Sydney duo Kyle Sandilands and Jackie “O” Henderson, again grew its share. It is now the third-most popular program in the breakfast slot.

Kyle and Jackie O are the stars of the KIIS radio network, owned by ARN Media.

The Nova show posted a 9.6 per cent share, only beaten by Gold’s The Christian O’Connell Show (10.8 per cent, up from 10.4 per cent) and 3AW’s Russel Howcroft and Ross Stevenson (18.8 per cent, down from 19.8 per cent).

Sandilands, Henderson and their station have urged Melburnians to “make up their own mind” with a marketing campaign worth as much as $6 million.

The expensive gamble, while in its early stages, is yet to pay off. The survey before their arrival netted the station a 6.4 per cent share at breakfast, but dropped to 5.9 per cent in their first survey.

Now, in their second radio survey in Melbourne (the fourth for the year overall), the show’s share remained flat on 5.9 per cent. The launch into Melbourne is part of a wider strategy to eventually nationalise the show.

The show’s cumulative audience (those who tuned in for at least 8 minutes) was 502,000, up from 454,000 in the previous survey. However, because the show’s share did not move, this means more listeners sampled the show, but turned it off sooner.

Nova’s breakfast show had a cumulative audience of 651,000.

Fox’s Fifi, Fev and Nick dropped share for the second consecutive survey, from 10 per cent to 9.5 per cent.

The fourth survey of the year measures the period spanning April 14 to June 22.

Last month, this masthead reported Kyle and Jackie O had been the target of an online campaign encouraging advertisers to boycott the show.

Major advertisers including Myer, AAMI, Bunnings, Samsung and Hamilton Island denied suggestions they had been convinced by activist group Mad F---ing Witches to pull their spend with the show.

Elsewhere, ABC Melbourne posted a 5.9 per cent share, up from a record low of 5.6 per cent.

Sammy J’s breakfast show rose to a 7.3 per cent share, up from 6.3, while mornings host Raf Epstein (6.5 per cent) and drive host Ali Moore (5.5 per cent) also had marginal gains.

The categorisations for time slots by ratings agency GfK do not always align with show times. 3AW’s drive host, Jacqui Felgate,posted a 7.5 per cent share in the drive slot, down from 8 per cent.

However, between 3pm and 6pm when her show airs, Felgate’s audience share rose to 8.4 per cent.

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