Ray Hadley departs radio as a ratings king, as ABC Sydney tumbles

The veteran Sydney radio broadcaster, who will retire on Friday after a 43-year career behind the microphone, has won his final ratings survey.

Radio broadcaster Ray Hadley, who will retire on Friday after a 43-year career behind the microphone, has won his final ratings survey. Picture: Rohan Kelly

Veteran Sydney radio broadcaster Ray Hadley, who will retire on Friday after a 43-year career behind the microphone, has won his final ratings survey.

Hadley who has fronted the 2GB morning show for more than two decades, registered a 13.7 per cent audience share in the eighth and final ratings survey of 2024, which covered the period from September 22 to November 30.

Five weeks ago, Hadley’s streak of 160 consecutive survey wins – across 20 years – was halted when he was edged by music station smoothfm’s morning program. But ratings data released by research company GfK on Thursday saw the FM network claim an audience share of 13.1 per cent in survey 8 (0.6 percentage points behind Hadley.

“It is a fantastic way to finish my career and the year, and I was in a fairly, I guess, sombre mood when we were beaten, and then after I had time to think about it, I thought it was not a bad run, 20 years at number one, and we got beaten,” Hadley told listeners this morning.

Hadley’s 2GB stablemate Ben Fordham, who hosts the Sydney station’s breakfast show, also reclaimed top spot in his timeslot, increasing his share to 15.1 per cent (up 2.8 percentage points from the previous survey), to push KIISFM’s Kyle and Jackie ‘O’ show to second place with 13.5 per cent (up 0.4) of the market.

Kyle Sandilands and his on- air partner Jackie O to be beamed into Melbourne next year to justify their $200m 10-year deal. Picture: Instagram

The Kyle and Jackie ‘O’ program, which has been syndicated into Melbourne since April, continues to struggle to connect with audiences in the Victorian capital. The controversial duo remain in seventh place in the competitive Melbourne breakfast market with an audience share of 5.0 per cent (down 0.1 per cent).

By way of comparison, the Kyle and Jackie ‘O’ show averages 713,000 listeners in Sydney; in Melbourne, the pair draws just 404,000.

Elsewhere, ABC Radio Sydney polled particularly poorly in the final survey of the year, losing market share across every timeslot.

Having clawed back listeners over the past six months, the station’s audience share dramatically dipped in the key timeslots of breakfast (hosted by Craig Reucassel, down 1.1 per cent to 7.8), and mornings, fronted by Sarah Macdonald, who was axed earlier this month amid an outcry from loyal listeners, who expressed their outrage at the move.

ABC radio presenter Sarah Macdonald.

But Macdonald slipped to sixth place in this survey, returning an audience share of 6.2 per cent (down from 7.5).

ABC Sydney Drivetime host Richard Glover, who left the broadcaster on November after presenting the program for 29 years, also lost audience share in his final survey, slipping from 7.3 per cent to 6.7.

ABC Melbourne’s audience share was steady across the board, although outgoing breakfast show host Sammy J saw his slice of the market jump from 7.5 to 7.9 per cent in his final survey.

The timeslot is still dominated by 3AW’s Ross Stevenson and Russel Howcroft, who drew an 19.3 per cent audience share (down 0.7 per cent).

3AW stablemate Tom Elliott, who has performed strongly all eight surveys this year, finished 2024 with a market share of 15.3 per cent (down 0.2), well ahead of second-placed smoothfm.

Jacqui Felgate, who hosts 3AW’s drive program, didn’t fare so well, slipping from fourth to sixth place in the timeslot after her audience share dipped from 9.2 per cent to 8.5.

Tom Elliott at 3AW. Picture: Jay Town

In Brisbane, 4BC’s fresh breakfast show host Peter Fegan, who took over as host of the program in September, is off to a slow start, with an audience share of 3.3 per cent, down 1.3 percentage points on the previous survey. The station sits in eighth position in the prestigious timeslot.

The ABC Brisbane breakfast team of Craig Zonca and Loretta Ryan boosted its audience share by 0.6 percentage points, up to 8.0 from 7.4, behind the pacesetters from B105, Abby Coleman, Stav Davidson, and Matt Acton on 14.1 per cent (up 0.2).

In Adelaide, 5MMM’s breakfast line-up of Roo, Ditts & Loz (Mark Ricciuto, Chris Dittmar and Laura O’Callaghan) finished the year on top with a 16.1 per cent share of the timeslot’s audience, ahead of NOVA91.9 on 12.4 per cent (up 1.8 points).

In Perth, the beleaguered 6PR (owned by Nine Entertainment) returned solid numbers in the final survey of the year, following months on internal upheaval at the station.

Audience shares for 6PR lifted across breakfast, mornings, afternoons and drive.

Outgoing presenter of ABC Radio National’s breakfast show Patricia Karvelas had a mixed result in her final ratings survey – she registered a significant bump in Melbourne, lifting her audience share from 1.6 to 2.2 per cent, and her average cumulative audience from 114,000 to 140,000. But Karvelas lost ground in Sydney, with a market share of 1.3 per cent (down from 1.5), and an average audience of 128,000, a drop of 8000 from the previous survey.

Former ABC foreign correspondent Sally Sara will replace Karvelas as host of the RN breakfast show in 2025.