Sydney breakfast host Christian O’Connell slams ‘hysterical reaction’ to his ratings results
Christian O'Connell at ARN's recent Heard event (Mumbrella)
Gold FM’s new national breakfast host Christian O’Connell delivered a lesson on radio ratings to his listeners yesterday after finishing a lowly sixth nationwide in the latest survey.
The British radio presenter called out the Australian media’s “hysterical [and] ridiculous” response to the ratings, which saw the show place fourth in Sydney behind Kyle and Jackie O, Ben Fordham and Ricki-Lee & Tim Blackwell.
Revealing on air his modest target to finish third in the Sydney radio survey, O’Connell said: “We are Australia’s first ever national commercial breakfast show. And last week was a big moment because it was the first radio ratings of the year. And in this country, radio ratings are hysterical, ridiculous.”
I can sympathize with Christian O’Connell. I’ve had a few run-ins with both station management and even some clients about radio ratings. When Tim Burrowes described the technology used to gather Australian radio audience data ”antiquated”, he should have used capital letters
I am starting to believe that the CRA run Gfk ratings are actually accelerating Radio’s demise. It’s almost as though CRA, and it’s member stations/networks, have masochistic tendencies.
I believe there are stations, way down in the ratings, that produce as good, if not better ROI, with lower revenues, and much lower annual spend, than the ‘gun’ stations. These low spend stations don’t GAS about the GfK ratings. They just play good music, have relatable (local) presenters and produce a half decent ROI on their shoestring budgets.