Melbourne radio ratings: Gold FM and Christian O’Connell successfully unseat Fox FM for top breakfast spot
Just over a year after the British radio star joined the station in 2018, Christian O’Connell has successfully pushed Gold FM to overtake Melbourne FM breakfast leaders Fox FM, holding 9.1% of the share, above Fox FM’s 8.7%.
Australian Radio Network’s (ARN) Gold FM also continued to climb above Southern Cross Austereo’s (SCA) Fox in the overall audience share, climbing 0.5 percentage points to 12.5%, making it the most-popular FM station in the Melbourne market.
Fox FM’s Fifi, Fev and Byron dropped 0.9 percentage points in the breakfast slot, falling to 8.7% overall. There were losses across the board in breakfast – ARN’s Kiis FM fell 0.4 percentage points, putting hosts Polly ‘PJ’ Harding and Jase Hawkins (Jase and PJ) on 5.4% overall, and Nova’s Chrissie Swan, Sam Pang and Jonathan Brown (Chrissie, Sam & Browny) fell 0.5 percentage points to 8.1%, putting them in third spot overall in the FM stations.
Is it any wonder, the man is a genius! Nice work Christian!
… so it takes a pom to teach Oz how to do breakfast radio?
….and one with a very smug press shot at that!
Christian is very good – since he started I’ve increasingly listened to him on the morning commute and less to the Nova team (and I like them, they’re still very good and have good team chemistry and good fill-ins for Sam Pang’s regular absences, especially Tony Martin who I would listen to anywhere.)
The Hot Breakfast team has just been doing it too long (and I never really liked Darcy; Eddie is a pro but after 20 years there’s no surprise with anything he says; Wil is better in small doses).
Jase and PJ… I’ve tried to give them a go but just too often something happens to make you switch off. Jase sometimes just comes off as a bit of a bully towards PJ. His persona can be too nasty (and not in on the joke like Sam Pang’s persona or owning it like Kyle Sandilands) and PJ’s too silly. I think they’re going for a watered down version of the Kyle and Jackie O dynamic and not getting it?
The Fox team are fine but a bit radio paint by numbers. The Nova team do a similar show better for mine. But Fox has R&B Fridays. Flicking around during annoying songs and annoying ads leads to more station changes than show runners might think… This tends to be Smooth’s advantage, if you like their music once you land there in the morning you’re likely to stick.
Maybe 2day FM should get him for their breakfast show in Sydney.
Still I doubt he would be able to compete against Kyle & Jackie O (Kiis) or Alan Jones (2GB).
Who have been dominant for years here.