BotW: Nine's centre of gravity is back to TV; Nick Garrett to rule them all; Why ARN needs to take K+J national
Welcome to Best of the Week, written on a chilly Saturday morning in Evandale, Tasmania. Cold enough to light the office fire for the first time this year.
Today: Nine is returning to its TV roots; the rise of Nick Garrett, and a big week in audioland.
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The audio week: K+J stuck in the middle; CO’C signals; did podcasts just overtake TV?
If audio biorhythms were a thing, then this week the three peaks aligned.
On Tuesday, GfK’s third set of ratings of the year dropped.
On Wednesday came Triton’s monthly Australian Podcast Ranker.
And on Thursday it was Edison Research’s annual Infinite Dial Australia report.
Chuck in the fact that we kicked off the week with the release of the annual Digital News Report from the News & Media Research Centre in Canberra, and it was data Christmas.
Can K+J get their mojo back?
We’ll start with the ratings.
First, the customary check-in on The Kyle & Jackie O Show on Kiis FM.
Yes, it was once again the worst result since the Melbourne project began. The show’s Melbourne share fell from 5.8% to 5.1%.
This was the third ratings survey period of the year, so the first with a year-on-year comparison to when Kyle Sandilands and Jackie Henderson first added Melbourne to their previously Sydney-only show
The average audience across Sydney and Melbourne was 131,000 this time. That’s 19% down on their 162,000 at the same time last year.
And it’s not just a Melbourne problem - in the same survey period two years ago, their average of 141,000 in Sydney alone was more than they are now achieving in both cities together.
The Sydney result was actually their worst in more than three years. You have to go back to the second survey of 2022 to find a lower number for The Kyle & Jackie O Show in Sydney.
Their 12.5% share in Sydney is still the top FM show, but the margin is narrowing, and AM talk station 2GB’s overall lead is growing.
For now, Kiis owner ARN Media is stuck in No Man’s Land. The expensive ten-year deal with Sandilands and Henderson means the company can’t afford to roll back to a single-city strategy. But the disappointing numbers are deterring the network from continuing the expansion into the other metro markets. I think it should push on.
What ARN needs to do now is to find a new way of telling the story.
Nova was able to boast about winning FM breakfast in four out of five markets, including Melbourne. Southern Cross Austereo is consistently talking about its hold on the 25-54 market.
Strategically, the only obvious gap that leaves ARN is to hold its nose and take The Kyle & Jackie O Show fully national, and then tell a story of national reach while improving the show.
In Brisbane, Kiis is fourth in the FM breakfast market. In Adelaide, ARN’s Mix is third. And in Perth, 96FM is second, albeit with a big gap to Nova. That doesn’t add up to a crazier gamble than what is already in place.
Even a full year in, it’s not possible to argue that the national strategy is the wrong one - only that Sandilands and Henderson bungled the execution by producing a show that is off its best.
What is certain though is that the status quo of two markets for the show is the worst option.
A new friend for CO’C
Speaking of ARN, Christian O’Connell unveiled a new voice on his Melbourne show on their other network Gold - slightly disgraced former Today show presenter Alex Cullen, who lost his job in the dumbest way possible with the Lambogate bet.
It follows the exit of co-host Jack Post last month.
Ostensibly, Cullen will be the sports voice on the show alongside newsreader Patsy Jones. On the face of it, it’s not the most logical choice if O’Connell was looking to widen the demographics. Unless, there’s more at play.
What Cullen would bring, thanks to his time with Nine, is familiarity for a Sydney audience.
Take it as a signal that ARN is closing on a plan to get O’Connell’s show into Sydney.
Long way to go for RN
Meanwhile, the ratings improved a little for ABC Radio National’s breakfast show. Across the five cities, the program, now hosted by Sally Sara, has grown for two surveys in a row. However, in the bigger picture the last three surveys have still been the shows worst ever.
In Sydney, Radio National’s daily share of audience slipped back below a horrendous 1%.
The ABC needs a new plan for RN.
Podcasting overtakes broadcast TV
Sticking with audio, the stat that most stayed with me from this year’s The Infinite Dial numbers was the landmark of more than half (52%) of those in the survey saying that they consume podcasts at least monthly.
While it had a different methodology and time period, it’s intriguing to compare that 52% podcast number to the 46% of Australians that the Australian Communications & Media Authority estimates are still watching broadcast TV in any given week.
While I’m unaware of any directly comparable data, I’ll send up the bat signal for Steve Allen - if anyone knows, he will (check the comments to see if Steve jumps in).
Mushroom month
Meanwhile, the mushroom trial both made an impression and demonstrated the limitations of the Australian Podcast Ranker in this month’s new numbers.
Mushroom Case Daily, from the ABC, was fourth in the ranker, delivering more than 3m downloads in May. News Corp’s The Mushroom Cook was 23rd and Nine Radio’s mushroom offering was 37th.
However, The Daily Mail’s The Trial of Erin Patterson was absent from the ranker because the publication is not signed up for the Triton ranking system.
With Spotify listening and the increasingly popular option of YouTube streaming of podcasts absent, the value of the ranker is becoming questionable.
The return of Nick Garrett
The week kicked off with The Australian reporting a rumour that has been circulating for weeks now.
Nick Garrett seems set to become the most powerful man in Australian agencyland.
Since he quietly left his role as global CMO of Deloitte Digital back in February, there was speculation that Garrett might come back to lead the Omnicom Advertising group locally, sitting across DDB, TBWA and the BBDO-aligned Clemenger agencies.
He’s well suited, having run Colenso in Auckland and Clems Melbourne back when they were both world beating.
But then came the rumour that the role could be bigger yet - a local boss of all things Omnicom, taking in the media and PR offerings too. With OMD, PHD and Hearts & Science on the list that’s significant enough.
With Clemenger Group chairman Robert Morgan and CEO Les Timar both announcing their departures at the end of the month, that seems even more likely.
And soon the role would get even bigger, with Omnicom in the final stages of acquiring Interpublic Group which would include the media agencies UM and Initiaitive.
That’s a big chair.
Nine - back to telly
There were many runes to read in yesterday afternoon’s management restructure announcement from Nine.
Nine’s screen and publishing operations are moving further apart, not closer.
That’s no surprise. New CEO Matt Stanton created three new divisions back in January - Streaming & Broadcast under the returned Amanda Laing; Publishing; and Marketplaces.
It’s the opposite strategy to the one former Fairfax Media boss Greg Hywood talked about in his interview with Mumbrella a few days ago. Hywood argued that the prize of the 2018 Nine takeover of Fairfax could have been the businesses coming together to build a much more successful Domain, and in the meantime reengineering the TV business.
The title of the Streaming & Broadcast division is a polite one, so as not to offend the people in the radio team. Really, it’s the screen division (assuming its too old fashioned to simply call it all television).
As previously telegraphed, Nine Radio will be run from the other side of the Sydney Harbour Bridge by Tom Malone and Brian Gallagher.
Yesterday’s announcement makes clear that radio will be a totally seperate operation from their screen colleagues even if they happen to be in the same division. A sale of the radio operation looks even more likely.
TV looks like the priority for Nine. Last night came fresh reporting from Capital Brief that it may buy out Optus Sport to get the English Premier League rights for Stan.
That marketplaces division will mostly vanish when the Domain sale to Costar completes, leaving only the faltering Drive (just $21m revenue last year).
Of the two remaining divisions of screen and publishing, they now feel more like flatmates than family.
When the company hires a new chief marketing officer and a new chief strategy officer, both will only sit across the streaming and broadcast division. Previously both roles sat across the whole business.
What that means for the publishing division is less clear. Will the company have two CMOs?
Another rune to read is that the state MDs for Queensland, WA and South Australia will also report into Laing.
Nine’s future looks increasingly like its past - as a TV company. Where they have media expertise, the board members are TV people.
If Nine still owns its publishing or radio divisions in two years time, I’ll be surprised.
A big Boomtown vacancy
Speaking of Brian Gallagher, his new gig running Nine’s metro-focused radio operation will indeed spell an end for him chairing the regional media initiative Boomtown. He announced his exit during the week.
Boomtown is a success story in getting media companies to work together in their common interests.
As the omnidebacle of ThinkTV demonstrates, that’s much harder than it looks.
More from Mumbrella…
Time to leave you to your Saturday.
If you’re prepared to tolerate a little more from me, then I can offer a few catchup options.
I moderated the Infinite Dial launch discussion during the week. It featured Lauren Joyce from ARN Media, Margie Reid from Thinkerbell and Edison Research’s Larry Rosin. You can watch the replay here:
If you were listening to last night’s broadcast of MediaLand on Radio National in the eastern states, you’ll be aware that there were some transmission difficulties, and the first six or seven minutes of the show didn’t go to air. You can find the full version of last night’s episode of MediaLand in all the usual podcast places. We talked about the Digital News Report, the audio numbers and the week’s various PR crises.
And on this week’s Mumbrellacast we chatted about Bear Meets Eagles On Fire’s Telstra grand prix in Cannes and the changing of the guard at Omnicom’s Clemenger Group.
We’ll be back with more on Monday.
Have a great weekend
Toodlepip…
Tim Burrowes
Publisher - Unmade + Mumbrella
tim@unmade.media
Ahh Tim. As of MAR '25 Morgan Single Source Database, Podcasts are now measured for 14+ population; 27.46% over 4 weeks, 22.67% past 7 days (thus those using very loyal/frequent) including 4.84% of Radio Catch-up. We highlight some of this in next Pearman Client - Steve's Media Intel, release. So you see a bit of a contrast