By Calum Jaspan
Kyle Sandilands and Jackie ‘O’ Henderson’s foray into Melbourne has ended 2024 on a low, with their show dropping to a 5 per cent market share, while former KIIS – now Nova – breakfast duo Jase and Lauren rose to a new high, finishing as the city’s No.1 FM radio show.
KIIS’s Kyle and Jackie O Show in Melbourne – its first step in a planned nationwide expansion – has so far failed to reach the heights of its Sydney success, where it landed on a 13.5 per cent share, beaten only by Ben Fordham, who rose to a 15.1 per cent share on the resurgent 2GB network.
Henderson, pictured with Sandilands. Their year in Melbourne ended on a low note.
Retiring Mornings host Ray Hadley finished the year – and his career – by reclaiming his ratings crown in the final survey of 2024, having lost top spot for the first time in two decades in November. He rose to a 13.7 per cent share, up from 11.1 per cent.
Elsewhere, Radio Sydney’s Sarah Macdonald, who was one of the most high-profile exits in a flurry of talent changes at the public broadcaster, fell to a 6.2 per cent share, down from 7.5 per cent.
Her Drive colleague Richard Glover dropped from a 7.3 per cent share to 6.3 per cent as he retires from the ABC after more than a quarter of a century.
In Melbourne, the ABC’s Sammy J signed off on a high, rising to a 7.9 per cent market share. The Breakfast host was in the ABC hot seat for five years, delivering high figures throughout a series of pandemic lockdowns in 2020 and 2021. He will be replaced by former AFL player Bob Murphy and journalist Sharnelle Vella in 2025.
A letter signed by ABC Radio Sydney staff shared with the public broadcaster’s board last week, seen by this masthead, said the line-up changes including Macdonald and weekend presenter Simon Marnie’s exits amounted to a “public relations disaster”.
The ABC’s capital city stations have struggled across Australia in 2024, hitting record lows in both Melbourne and Sydney. The ratings slide led to the extensive changes announced last month by audio boss and former Nova executive Ben Latimer.
Ratings across the Sydney network are yet to recover despite a momentary bump in the seventh survey, including for Macdonald and Glover’s shows. All shows across the Sydney station lost market share.
ABC Melbourne finished the year in seventh place, with Sydney in sixth.
After three years, Radio National is also changing its Breakfast line-up, replacing Patricia Karvelas with Sally Sara and a team of three on-air reporting staff. Across the two major markets, Karvelas finished the year on 2.5 per cent in Melbourne, up slightly on the previous survey, and 1.9 per cent in Sydney, down 0.6 percentage points.
The Kyle and Jackie O Show has endured a controversial launch into Melbourne. At the close of 2023, the station’s breakfast show, then hosted by Jase and Lauren, was ranked the third-biggest program in the market. Since their departure, and the arrival of the Sydney duo, the show has been in freefall, ending the year in eighth spot.
Meanwhile, the Nova pair has steadily risen and grown its audience, finishing the year only behind the dominant 3AW pair Russel Howcroft and Ross Stevenson. 3AW is owned by Nine, the publisher of this masthead.
With its market share down and the show hitting headlines for its controversial content, KIIS owner ARN’s advertising dollars have declined. For the year until October 30, ARN’s advertising revenue was down 6 per cent, $5 million in total. While the market has suffered overall, rivals Nova (4 per cent) and Southern Cross (1.6 per cent) did not experience losses to the same extent.
The market was down 4.1 per cent overall between January to October, compared to 2023. The agency figures were shared with this masthead confidentially.
In a major upset, Smooth FM ended the year as the top station in Sydney after Nine-owned 2GB suffered two unusually low survey periods in a row. Nova-owned Smooth finished with a 12.3 per cent share, while 2GB rose 2 percentage points to an 11.8 per cent share.
In Melbourne, 3AW was the unsurprising winner of 2024 with a 13.6 per cent share. Following 3AW was Smooth, while Gold FM finished third, marginally ahead of Nova.
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