ABC’s flagship program Radio National Breakfast losing listeners since Patricia Karvelas took over

Patricia Karvelas took over as host of RN Breakfast from veteran broadcaster Fran Kelly two years ago, but since then audience numbers have fallen dramatically.

ABC Radio National’s flagship news program RN Breakfast has lost a third of its audience since Fran Kelly’s departure two years ago and management hope her recently announced return to a regular hosting role on the station will lead to a bigger role there and improve audiences.

Kelly departed the RN Breakfast program after 17 years at the end of the 2021 – replaced by Patricia Karvelas – and since then analysis of official radio ratings data from GfK shows listenership has plunged by 34 per cent.

Cumulative listenership (the number of different people reached at least once by a radio station during a set period of time) across the five major cities has fallen from 372,000 listeners in Kelly’s last survey in 2021, to 247,000 listeners in the latest ­survey for host Karvelas.

This is a fall of 33.6 per cent.

Across all cities, the RN Breakfast’s audience share has also dropped – in Sydney (4.3 per cent to 1.8), Melbourne (3.9 to 2.4), Brisbane (3.8 to 2.4), Perth (3.2 to 0.9) and Adelaide (2.6 to 1.3).

Several sources from ABC’s radio arm, who did not wish to be named, told The Australian that executives were pleased that Kelly was returning to RN as part of the weekend line-up, hosting Saturday Extra at 7am.

One source said Kelly was “needed as much as possible” on the radio arm, with the hope that she could return to a bigger role on the station in the future.

In the past two years, Kelly has continued creating podcasts for the ABC.

Last year, she hosted the TV chat show Frankly, which included discussions with well-known Australians, but the program was cancelled after just one season.

Kelly said earlier this month that she was “delighted to be back with the RN audience”.

ABC RN manager Cath Dwyer said she was “thrilled” to welcome back Kelly.

The ABC’s news director Justin Stevens said in response to the declining RN Breakfast ratings: “Patricia Karvelas is an outstanding journalist and exceptional communicator who does excellent work.

“She’ll continue to present RN Breakfast next year, as well as having other key roles across the ABC,” he said.

Karvelas fronts the breakfast program from Tuesday to Friday, with Hamish Macdonald standing in on Mondays when she is hosting TV current affairs panel show Q+A on Monday nights.

On Monday the ABC announced Karvelas will continue to host Q+A in 2024 — she will do this alongside hosting RN Breakfast.

Karvelas is on leave and returns in late January.

Karvelas and Kelly were contacted for comment, but did not respond.

The pair also host a weekly podcast together called The Party Room where they discuss political issues.

The ABC recently announced a number of departures from the station, including Tom Switzer, from Between the Lines, and ­former Liberal senator Amanda Vanstone who hosts Counterpoint.

Other hosts whose tenure at RN finishes at the end of the year include Benjamin Law, who led the program Stop Everything! alongside Beverley Wang – she will lead the program on her own.

The program Earshot, led by Miyuki Jokiranta and Taku Mbudzi, has been axed, but the station will repeat old episodes.

The last radio ratings survey for the year will be released on Tuesday.