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.”
O’Connell fired the broadside at the media for the coverage of his first Sydney survey results, adding: “You would have thought that I’d come in at number 444. Here’s some of the headlines – ‘Radio star suffers brutal ratings collapse’.”
He then told his listeners this is actually a “strong start”, and he revealed he spoke with management about it recently, who offered a bonus to teams members. Given ARN’s financial plight at present, no surprise that bonus doesn’t involve cash.
“The boss had a big chat with me over the weekend,” O’Connell said.
“And I want every single team member to listen in right now, because I think you’re going to double down on your efforts right now when I hear about the bonus, an incentive that’s being offered to every single team member. I’ve been told that if we can get from fourth to third in the Sydney breakfast show ratings, everyone on this show, everyone who works on this show, gets a meat tray.
“You are genuinely part of our family. We make the show for you guys. At the moment, there are people in our marketing department here at the radio station coming up with all kinds of wordplay and word magic to try and sell the show to new and possible listeners in Sydney.”
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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.