‘It is going to take a bit longer than we first thought’: ARN’s chief concedes Kyle and Jackie O’s Melbourne domination will take some time
ARN spent millions on a splashy campaign to launch Kyle and Jackie O into the fiercely competitive Melbourne FM breakfast radio market, only to discover in the most current ratings book that the audience might take longer than expected to find.
But, as chief content officer Duncan Campbell tells Mumbrella, the listeners will come once the market settles down.
“I think we were all very enthusiastic about expectations early on,” Campbell says of Kyle and Jackie O’s entry in the Melbourne FM breakfast market.
Although the pair hit the Melbourne airwaves in late April, the most recent survey was the first in which they were on air during the entire ratings period. In the same day they celebrated 45 straight survey wins in the Sydney FM breakfast market, they stumbled to fifth place in Melbourne, behind not only Nova’s Jase and Lauren, the duo they bumped from KIIS 101.1’s Breakfast show, but other competitive shows from Gold, The FOX, and smoothfm, not to mention shows on talk stations ABC and 3AW over on the AM band. Kyle and Jackie O commanded a 6.1% market share, 3.8 points behind the FM leaders.
While it was a disappointing first strike, Campbell is diplomatic.
“The reality is, it is a new station, a new show for Melbourne, and while we in radio think about these things every day, the audience doesn’t, and there’s a lot of marketing noise down there, so trying to get cut through and get some people sampling us, it’s challenging when there’s so much marketing noise.”
People in Melbourne aren’t that stupid. Sadly it highlights how many idiots there are in Sydney. Imagine actively choosing to have these two in your life in any shape or form? I’d rather go to a Trump rally.
Dream on buddy and make as many excuses as you want, the reality is that no one wants to listen to the filth that comes out of Kyle’s mouth with his cheerleader backing him up, and guess what, it doesn’t take long to figure out that it’s not shock radio, but a genuine filthy mindset. Kiss swapped out smut for filth. Well done.
Still, they are laughing all the way to the bank.