Finding the positives in the last radio ratings of the year; Why is Kerry Stokes creeping up the Seven register?
Welcome to a midweek update from Unmade.
Today: Kerry Stokes’ has grown his ownership control over Seven West Media. We have a theory. Southern Cross Austereo and ARN Media’s market caps surge after they tell the market the takeover talks are still on. And there was a way for every commercial player to enjoy the final set of radio ratings of the year (but the ABC, not so much)
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Reasons to be cheerful about radio (Pts 1,2,3 & 4, but not 5)
Now the year really is done.
Like the cicadas all emerging at once, most of the big media companies sent their Christmas wishes email within an hour so of each other, just before lunch on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the TV networks called their annual truce in the official ratings war way back on December 2.
And yesterday came the last big scheduled piece of media news of the year: the release of the eighth and final radio ratings survey of 2023.
If you looked hard enough, there was something to cheer most players.
Southern Cross Austereo: Fox on the run
We’ll start with Southern Cross Austereo, as it’s probably the company’s last Christmas.
SCA claimed FM wins in three out of the five metro markets in what it says was its best results in a decade.
Most notably, in Melbourne Fox FM – part of SCA’s Hit Network – pulled level with ARN Media’s Gold, with a share of 10.3% of Monday to Sunday listening. That came after Gold lost 2.1 ratings share points.
The Melbourne result also saw Fox’s breakfast show Fifi, Fev & Nick overhaul Gold’s Christian O’Connell for top FM slot.
In Adelaide, SCA’s Triple M retained its overall lead in the market with an average share of 14.4%, despite the Kiis-aligned Mix closing the gap, pulling in a share of 11.9%
And in Brisbane, Triple M grew its share by 1.5 ratings points to overtake Nova with a 13.3% to 12.7% share.
However, it was a little harder for SCA to find cheer in Sydney, where Triple M and 2Day FM remain at the bottom of the pack, both with a 5.2% share.
ARN Media: A big finish for Jase & Lauren
ARN’s biggest reason to be cheerful came, as it often does, from Kyle Sandilands and Jackie Henderson on Kiis in Sydney. The duo hit 40 consecutive FM survey wins. They also stretched their lead as number one overall, ahead of 2GB’s Ben Fordham.
They averaged 132,000 listeners to Fordham’s 126,000.
In cumulative audience, the Kyle & Jackie O Show also surged, recording a number of 867,000 – their second best cume of all time.
Which bodes well for The Kyle & Jackie O Show’s arrival in Melbourne, when it becomes a two-city show from next year.
The one time ARN will have been quietly hoping for a bad result – to make comparisons easier next year – they didn’t get it. The final set of ratings for Jase Hawkins and Lauren Phillips, axed to make way for the Kyle & Jackie O Show simulcast, were their best, rising from an 8% share to 9.1%. That also saw them beat Christian O’Connell for the first time.
The Jase & Lauren result can’t be written off as the farewell factor. The ratings period covered September 24 to December 2, and the announcement of the change was only made on November 22.
ARN will also have been cheered by 96FM’s victory in Perth, with a stonking share of 15.3%, overtaking SCA’s Mix and Nova.
Nova: Smooth sailing in Sydney
Nova Entertainment’s second tier network Smooth had a big finish in Sydney, moving up to an 11.4% share, just 0.1 of a share point behind Kiis, and 0.7 behind 2GB.
Nova was also able to claim some big network scores including (according to Nova’s crunching of the numbers), biggest average audience and total cume across the five cities.
Nova also says that its drivetime show Ricki-Lee, Tim & Joel now has the biggest metro share.
Nine: Top for talk
Nine’s talk stations fired in two out of four cities.
In Melbourne, 3AW remained dominant, with a 13.6% share, well ahead of Fox and Gold.
In Sydney, it was a closer run thing for Nine’s 2GB. It clung to a narrow lead with a 12.1% share. But Ben Fordham softened in breakfast, by 0.2 percentage points to 16% – enough for The Kyle & Jackie O Show to stretch their lead, improving by 0.4 points to 16.7%.
In drivetime, now hosted by Chris O’Keefe, 2GB is also showing further signs of recovery from its failed Jim Wilson tenure – with share improving to 7.4%. However, the average audience of 39,000 is still some way off the 62,000 delivered in Ben Fordham’s last shifts before he shifted to breakfast
In Brisbane, 4BC still isn’t firing for Nine though. The breakfast show hosted by Laurel Edwards, Gary Clare and Mark Hine, had a bad trip , fading from a share of 8.0% to 6.4%.
In Perth, Nine’s 6PR also dipped, from a 6.2% share to 5.8%.
ABC still propping up the table
The network that had to work hardest to find something to be cheerful about yesterday was the ABC, which is still struggling for share.
On Wednesday RN Breakfast host Patricia Karvelas took to Instagram to rail against The Australian’s coverage of the flagship show’s poor ratings. It was, she claimed, a “hit piece”.
In the context of ongoing, extremely poor ratings, I’m not sure her complaint was valid. Given The Australian’s hostility to the ABC, the thing that’s surprised me more over the last couple of years is how little attention it has been paying to the decline in Radio National listener numbers.
I know there are technically three working days left this year, but if there was one surprise for me in the crop of end-of-year announcements, it was the lack of bigger changes at RN.
In yesterday’s numbers, RN recorded the lowest average listening to the 6-9am time in Sydney in the network’s history.
An average of just 11,000 people were listening to the show in Sydney, on all platforms. Given its resource and previous influence, that’s impossible to justify.
Karvelas’s 1.4% share of the Sydney audience was less than half that of the much more poorly resourced ABC News Radio (3.4%). In fact, of the 15 stations covered by the survey, she was 14th, beating only SEN.
Things were no brighter for the ABC’s city stations, with share sinking in Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. The only city where it improved was ABC Adelaide.
How Unmade covered the ABC’s arrival on the Australian Podcast Ranker last week:
Index rises thanks to SCA deal remaining on table, and a curious trade in Seven West Media stocks
The Unmade Index had a Santa rally on Tuesday, as wheeling and dealing on the sharemarket drove up the price of most media and marketing stocks.
The Unmade Index rose by 2.72% to 619.6 points. It easily outperformed the ASX All Ords which rose by less than 0.9%.
Investors reacted positively to an update on the state of the ARN Media takeover bid for SCA. Despite the fact that the timeline has been pushed back into 2024 thanks to due diligence, the update hinted that a Takeover Panel speeding ticket has not derailed the process.
Part of the deal could see SCA shareholders get a special dividend worth the equivalent 12.7c per share, ARN said. SCA’s share price leapt by 8c to $1.04, taking its market capitalisation back up to $250,000.
Meanwhile, ARN Media’s share price improved even more, rising by 12.79%.
But another sharp jump might also raise eyebrows.
Seven West Media improved by 5.88%. After the market closed, the Kerry Stokes dominated (and ASX listed) Seven Group Holdings revealed that it had grown its stake in SWM by a percentage point – creeping up the register from 39.2% to 40.2%.
A tactic used by Stokes when he took over The West Australian Newspaper group more than a decade ago was to slowly creep up the register before launching a full takeover bid which eventually led to the creation of SWM.
Seven Group Holdings has held its stake below the 40% mark for a decade, so why increase it now? One explanation could simply be that Stokes consider’s Seven’s valuation – around $400m – to be cheap. But another, more intriguing, reason, would be to create greater certainty in any shareholder vote to come.
The 14.9% stake SWM bought in ARN Media looks increasingly as more than a passive investment.
The other big media stock to jump yesterday was Nine, which rose by 2.28%
Almost time to leave you to your Wednesday. Before I do, a final reminder: Upgrade to an Unmade membership before the end of the week to lock in a discount we’ll never repeat.
I’ll be back tomorrow in audio form with an excellent chat with Fetch CEO Scott Lorson. He knows as much as anyone about the state of TV in Australia, and he shares it during the conversation.
Have a great day.
Toodlepip…
Tim Burrowes
Publisher – Unmade
tim@unmade.media
