THE radio ratings year has come to an end and, after the bloody battles over breakfast earlier in the year, the All New 92.9 has emerged as one of the shining successes of the year.
Mix 94.5 has ended what managing director Gary Roberts referred to as a “juggernaut of a year”, claiming 21.5 per cent of the market.
According to figures put together by Austereo, the All New 92.9 and Mix 94.5 swept the field, between them accounting for top spot in every age demographic under 65 years.
In sharp contrast, 96Fm has continued on its downward slide, hitting the lowest reading for
the year in the last survey.
It’s a very different picture to the third survey of this year, when the All New 92.9 was struggling to find its place in the market.
At that point 96FM sat in a confident second place behind Mix 94.5. This time 96FM lost ground in every session.
The rise of the All New 92.9 has been a slow building process for Austereo.
“This is not something that happened overnight … we’ve always had a plan and we’ve stuck to it and got results,” Mr Roberts said.
“We’ve spent a year rebuilding 92.9 and to be able to actually get the result is great.
“It’s been an interesting year we’ve had a fabulous year with 94.5 … 92.9 we rebuilt the product which most people wouldn’t have given us the credit to do.
“We were very quiet during re-building but we had internal goals and at the end of the day we’ve achieved everything we set out to do.”
It’s been an equally interesting year for the talk back stations, but 6PR has managed to retain its lead, although it was significantly narrowed this survey with ABC 720 picking up some ground in a number of sessions, including the morning show.
The market will have to wait until February 2002 to see if 6PR can continue to hold the lead.
