ABC Melbourne breakfast host Sammy J continues to struggle in the ratings, despite a slight recovery for the station after a disappointing first survey of the year.
The average audience for his breakfast slot dropped by 1.1 percentage points in the second survey of 2022, to an 8.7 per cent share of the total market.
Why so glum? Sammy J’s breakfast show again slid backwards in the radio ratings.Credit:Joe Armao
By way of comparison, when the previous breakfast hosts, Sami Shah and Jacinta Parsons, were axed in November 2019 – with ABC management claiming they hadn’t connected with audiences in the way they had hoped – their audience share in their final survey was 10.4 per cent.
Sammy J can take heart, at least, in the fact his rivals on the AM dial also suffered a drop, with Ross Stevenson and Russel Howcroft on 3AW (which is owned by Nine Entertainment Co., the owner of this masthead) shedding 3.6 points, to finish with an 18 .9 per cent share of audience. Significant as the dip was – they shed 28,000 listeners, to an average of 147,000 across the 5.30am to 9am slot – it still left them with the biggest audience share of any radio presenters on either AM or FM.
Fellow 3AW presenter Neil Mitchell did, however, come within a whisker of snatching the title of Melbourne’s most-listened-to presenter, with an average audience of 144,000 and a share of 18.5 points in mornings. (NB: the ratings survey measures audiences by time rather than program, so correlations are never exact and some listeners from one show may end up being counted in another’s.)
Nova’s breakfast team of Chrissie Swan, Jonathan Brown and Sam Pang have enjoyed their biggest lift in six years on air together.Credit:Nova
Across the dial, the ABC’s total market share recovered by a sliver, lifting from 7.4 per cent of the total listening audience to 7.6 per cent across seven days.
Virginia Trioli added 0.9 point share in mornings (to 9.8 per cent), Jacinta Parsons added a full point in afternoons (up from 5 to 6 per cent share), while the 7pm to midnight shift – where David Astle sits in the chair to 10pm and Philip Clarke to midnight – enjoyed the biggest lift, up by 1.5 points to a 10.3 per cent share. Rafael Epstein was down slightly in Drive (from 7.3 per cent to 7).
The big gains this survey were all on the FM dial, with Fox adding 1.8 points across the week to finish with a 9.6 per cent share.
In the breakfast slot, Fifi Box, Brendan Fevola and Nick Cody lifted their share by 2.1 points to 9.6 per cent, while in evenings, spearheaded by Abbie Chatfield’s Hot Nights, the station enjoyed a 2.5 point lift from 5.7 per cent share to 8.2.
Also making big strides was Nova’s breakfast team of Chrissie Swan, Sam Pang and Jonathan Brown, whose share rose from 7.5 per cent to 9.2, their biggest lift in more than six years on air together.
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