ABC radio is struggling to reach the masses; new data suggests the Canberra power brokers are not tuning in either

Welcome to Tuesdata, our weekly analysis for Unmade’s paying members.

Below, we examine newly released radio ratings for the ABC in Canberra amidst rising pressure on the broadcaster to recapture departed listeners. We also report on a poor day on The Unmade Index in which ARN Media’s market capitalisation fell back below $300m.

It’s your last chance to get tickets for humAIn, our conference focusing on the impact of AI on media and marketing in Surry Hills, Sydney tomorrow. Unmade members get discounted tickets to our events. The coupon code for $135 off your humAIn ticket appears at the end of this post, below the paywall.

What the new Canberra data tells us about the ABC’s radio exodus

Seja Al Zaidi and Tim Burrowes write:

The ABC’s senior management have been told by the broadcaster’s board that it must urgently address the decline of its radio performance. The directive, revealed in the Australian earlier this month, followed an internal report into the publicly funded broadcaster where it was found that radio listeners have been dropping off consistently in recent years.

The ABC has argued in recent weeks that coverage of Radio National, including by Unmade, “grossly misrepresents its listenership”. It issued a statement claiming what it described as its “five capital cities” listening was above 300,000. To reach that number, the ABC included cumulative listening in Canberra, Gold Coast and Newcastle.

These three regional markets are surveyed less frequently than the five capital cities which get eight surveys a year. Canberra, the GC and Newcastle get three surveys. Last week saw the release of Canberra’s second survey of the year, the first to be released since the furore.

Because the ABC has been using these regional numbers to bolster its claims about the health of its five capital cities audiences, it is timely to give more attention than usual to what’s going on in the Canberra market.

The argument has long been made that when it comes to ABC Radio National, part of its importance comes not just from overall national audience but from its influence over the political class in Canberra.

However, by that measure, Radio National is also in trouble. The new numbers reveal that Radio National has hit an all time low in Canberra too.

Cumulative listening to the station (the number of people who tuned in at least once during the week) fell to just 40,000 – the lowest since the current survey system, run by GfK, began in 2014.

It’s been a year since RN was able to pull more than 50,000 listeners in Canberra. The last time it did, it was mid-2022 with 52,000.

For this exercise, we’ve looked at Canberra audience numbers for people aged 10+ since GfK took over as research provider – that makes nine years of data.

Before we go more deeply into the ABC numbers, we’ll cover off commercial listening, with the two FM commercial stations dominating.

ARN’s Mix 106.3 leads with a hefty share of 25.8%, followed by Southern Cross Austereo’s Hit 104.7 on 14.7%.

Returning to ABC Radio National, the network’s flagship RN Breakfast, hosted by Patricia Karvelas, hit a new low for share of 9.9% of listening in the timeslot.

The show only achieved a weekly cumulative audience of 28,000.

Listeners appear to be turning instead to the more lightly resourced ABC Newsradio which saw its breakfast share hit 8.2%, its second best in the market. Its previous high was back in 2017 when it reached an 8.5% share.

Meanwhile, the ABC’s city station ABC Canberra was third in the market behind Mix and Hit on an improved share of listening of 11.1%.

However, this better number was still the second worst on record for ABC Canberra. The previous low came in the previous survey when its share declined to 8.4%.

In the breakfast slot, hosted by Adam Shirley, share is also close to its lowest number for ABC Canberra, with share on 12.3%, the station’s second lowest since 2014.

Meanwhile, youth station Triple J hit its all time low in Canberra at the start of this year, with just 6.1% of listening. Last week, its share improved to 6.5%, which was its third worst result on record.

Unmade Index starts the week on a sour note

It was a Monday of poor performance on the Unmade Index, our measurement of ASX-listed media and marketing stocks. It dipped 0.68% to land at 627 points.

The market capitalisation of ARN Media dropped back below $300m with a 3.48% price fall.

However, an even bigger loser was communications agency holding group Enero, falling 6.98%.

Printing and marketing firm IVE Group fell 1.74% while Seven West Media saw its share price decline by 1.37%.

The only big stock with any positive movement yesterday was Domain, which lifted 0.85%.

That’s all for today. Thanks for supporting us through your membership.

We’ll be back with more tomorrow.

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