About the rapid decline of Alan Jones

[AusradioSearch http://www.ausradiosearch.com/]

About the rapid decline of Alan Jones

About the rapid decline of Alan Jones' dominance in Sydney breakfast:

his share is down sharply in the past year, and especially since the
November federal election.

In media terms, Jones is the major victim (if we have to have one) of
the change in Government and the apparent changes in the Australian
community that Rudd and Labor were able to successfully tap.

Some in radio are now saying that the biggest trend in radio in recent
years is that the talkback formula developed by legendary Sydney
producer, John Brennan at 2UE and 2GB, is dead. "Struggle street", the
John Brennan formula for talkback radio in Australia, is out, and that
means the yelling and hectoring style so beloved of Al Jones, Ray
Hadley, Steve Price, Mike Carlton and the departed John Laws is no
longer relevant, perhaps because its practitioners failed to
understand the changed mood in Australia that last November's Federal
election marked.

That means the cynical strategy of plumbing the petty jealousies of
people in western Sydney towards those in the east of the city, of
sensationally targeting politicians and the political and social
elites, is much less effective than it once was. (Is that also why the
News Ltd tabloid, the Sydney Daily Telegraph, is also doing it tough,
with circulation sliding?)

702 is more creative (an hour of comedy and music from 5.05pm to 6pm
-- on Fridays on Richard Glover's drive program) helps make it the
highest rating talking drive program in Sydney, as does around 25
minutes of chat between politicians, arts critics, journalists and
life matters. Self improvement on Wednesday, where an obscure topic is
discussed (classical Greek history for example) gets higher figures.

Even the derided Deborah Cameron on 702, a complete newbie when she
started at the begging of 2008, is doing better than everyone bar the
shouting Ray Hadley on 2GB. Adam Spencer in breakfast on 702 talks
about maths puzzles, science and politics, as well as the joys and
pitfalls of riding a bike to work at 4.30am. Alan Jones for example is
driven to work.

But it's the continuing decline of Alan Jones in Sydney breakfast
radio, the most competitive and lucrative radio timeslot in the
country, that best exemplifies what is happening.

Jones and his station are being stalked by the underfunded 702. It has
fewer resources than the commercial AM talk and FM stations and yet it
was the big improver in the most recent survey and is now a clear
number two in the market behind 2GB.

The radio audience figures show that more people listened to 702 in
the last survey than listened to 2GB. 589,000 people listened to 702
Monday to Friday according to the latest figures compared to 476,000
for 2GB.

2GB's share was 11.6 Monday to Friday, down from 11.7: 702's share was
10.6, up from 8.9. A year ago 2GB's share in survey 4 of 2007 was 13.7
(13.6 in survey 4) and 702's was 7.6 (down from 9.3 in Survey 4 and a
low point).

Jones is still in front with a 13.8 share (15.2 previously) but Adam
Spencer has closed to a 12.2 share, up from 10.1, indicating an
enormous fall in the past year. In survey five last year he had a
share of 17 (16.8 in survey four) and 702 breakfast's share was 10.1,
down from 11 in Survey 4.

And it's significant that at a time when high oil and petrol prices,
as well as food costs and interest rates should have provided fertile
ground for Jones and Hadley, as well as Mike Carlton and Steve Price
on Fairfax radio's 2UE, they failed to make any impression. The ABC
improved in the face of those "struggle street" issues.

Is that why Brendan Nelson is struggling with his 5 cents a litre off?
Australians want to hear something substantive, not a band-aid or a
crude appeal to our emotions or hip pocket, and they are prepared to
listen?

Meanwhile, there was little discussion in The Sydney Morning Herald of
the poor performance of Fairfax radio’s 2UE talk station in Sydney.
2UE’s poor performance was lumped into a final paragraph with other
stations. Its share fell to 6.6 Monday to Friday from 7.1, a drop of
half a point and its share in breakfast, mornings, afternoon and
drive, all the important timeslots, fell.

Macquarie Radio’s easy music station, 2CH, now has a higher share than
2UE (at 6.7) Monday to Friday and outrates it in the morning and
afternoon shifts. 2CH also has more listeners on weekends. Surely that
was a story for the SMH news editors?

Send your tips to bo...@crikey.com.au, submit them anonymously here or
SMS tips and photos to 0427 TIP OFF.
Add a new comment Your Comments

Already a Crikey Member? Login below to comment or click here to start
a Free Membership now.
Your Email Password
Remember Me

Need your password?

Bill Hodges
Wednesday, 18 June 2008 2:57:42 PM
The big test for 2GB and for Jones inparticular will come during the
Olympic Games. For the first time a commercial radio station in Sydney
has the exclusive radio rights. The ABC, while able to broadcast the
games to the rest of Australia, is not permit to broadcast the
Olympics in the Sydney metropolitian area leaving 2GB with a
strangehold. With the China timezones relatively similar to Sydney,
radio should have a fieldday particularly during the day. if 2GB's
figuers dont increase you might see Jones and Hadley heading for
retirement.
Dennis
Wednesday, 18 June 2008 4:58:18 PM
How the untalented, big noting boofhead Jones ever made the impression
on the ratings he formally did, beggers understanding. Of course he
had the assistance of his mate the lost little loser, Howard, of whom
he boasted, he had the ear of whenever he wanted. How now Jonesy?
Kevin Rudd sorted the parrott out early on and as he has done with
Cassidy on Insiders, you tete a tete with the Liberal media attack
mongrels ie Akerman and Bolt, you dont get the i/v with the PM, given
the non stop absurd, personal vendettas being carried on by these
three in particular, fair enough for KR to pull the plug on those
programmes interviews. Doubt he is looking to be treated with kid
gloves but non stop personal attacks, with Akerman even suggesting he
will bring the Prime Minister down with his fanatical obsession with
the so called non event the Heiner Affair, we still await some 12
months on, this momentous happening. Any wonder there is a non
appearance in place on some shows.
So if this is the end of Jones, bye bye birdie, doubt there will be
many tears shed.
Miranda
Wednesday, 18 June 2008 5:16:10 PM
Someone had to finally call the bluff of this on-air bully and Labor
did it successfully by ignoring him at the last NSW state election.
You should do some investigation and see the number of charity events
that are turning their backs on Jones as the MC for the night.

Besides-anyone seeing the picture of Allan in his purple bell bottoms
at Kings couldn't possibly take him seriously anymore.
Patricia Weston
Wednesday, 18 June 2008 6:29:37 PM
"Is that why Brendan Nelson is struggling with his 5 cents a litre
off? Australians want to hear something substantive, not a band-aid or
a crude appeal to our emotions or hip pocket, and they are prepared to
listen?" It's not just Brendan Nelson and the Opposition who are
struggling to understand Australians
right now. The media generally , which seems to be angling for an anti-
Rudd, anti-Government angle on almost every issue hitting the press
and airwaves, is not having much influence on the Australian public as
opinion polls tell them very clearly. Even the recent Nielsen poll did
not reflect in any sense the view of the commentariat that Rudd is
losing his honeymoon glow. The public is not listenting to a
commentariat which devotes enormous time and space to jibing about new
policy reviews lacking substance even before reports are in and action
planned and which encourages whinging from those directly and
negatively impacted by long overdue and foreshadowed policy outcomes.
And much as the public might say they want changes to petrol excise
when asked directly in a one sentence opinion poll, there is a broad
understanding in the electorate at large that the issues of peak oil,
petrol pricing and climate change are all part of a huge tangled
problem to which a knee jerk vote winning answer is just not available
or wise. The common sense of Australians is reflected in the latest
Newspoll which counters the populist and immoral stance of the
Coalition on petrol excise.

davo
Wednesday, 18 June 2008 6:31:46 PM
Face it. Radio is dead. All it talks about is inane inanities - there
is nothing worth listening to. And good riddance.

Cathy Morris
Wednesday, 18 June 2008 7:42:02 PM
As if the radio industry gurus – particularly those sitting at UE and
GB couldn't see this coming! It's so typical of the confusion that
reigns in radio these days with the major media players more spun out
on politically influencing talk-back audiences than entertaining them.
Aside from the bias, there's no interest or effort to maximise the
unique immediacy, imagery and sound qualities that only radio can
deliver. Why on earth would a radio station hire television and print
journo's or old political bureaucrats as on-air presenters? Just
because they can write editorials, stories and policies, doesn't mean
they can verbally communicate well. It’s as silly as the FM music
stations using song and dance talent that no one can see! They
resonate as ordinary, literally leaving nothing to the imagination.
Even those reading the news bulletins sound pubescent. Just ten years
ago we had gutsy, ballsy and stimulating voices talking to us and not
at or down. They communicated. Radio is dying because those running it
aren’t in tune with its philosophy. Either that or media owners just
want a no-frills, cost-less info-entertainment product where a stable
of generic, all-purpose ‘stars’ just wander from their radio gig to a
television screen and then perch behind a PC at a daily newspaper.
It’s all very much like the Howard model that took him and his product
off the social agenda. There goes radio!
Irfan
Wednesday, 18 June 2008 8:27:04 PM
I don't think it's fair to describe Mike Carlton as a talkback host
who panders to people's prejudices.
Chris Morris
Thursday, 19 June 2008 12:14:22 AM
Alan Jones can take his pick. He's a symptom and a casualty of an
industry that's been dying a slow death for years in the absence of
stringent standards, guidelines and control. Radio’s unique qualities
of portability, immediacy and skilled delivery of sounds and imagery
have been fully flicked by licence holders who prefer to use it as a
hoakey cheap megaphone and not a powerful communications force. And
they've used radio programming to deliver opinionated talk-back only
to come off second best. Jones is a prime example of why radio is
dying. Sure a great debater and editorialist but as an apologist for
the Liberal Party that folded last election, so did his career. GB
took a big punt. So has UE with Price dabbling in anything that
crosses his mind. It’s not riveting communication or interaction with
the listening audience, more something you thumbed through in your
dentist’s waiting room five years ago. Media networks have (for want
of better words) f**ked over the radio industry by milking and
plundering and putting profit first. The end result is an industry now
unable to deliver creative, cutting edge communication on our air
waves. Just because people can write a news column, dance like a star,
coach a footie team or file brilliant material as a war correspondent,
doesn’t mean they can draw a radio audience. Nor does a gaffe-free
news bulletin sound riveting if there’s no energy, guts and punch.
Real radio is a magical experience. Only a miracle will bring it back.
Carrie
Thursday, 19 June 2008 9:49:53 AM
There's no doubt the failing Fairfax and Macquarie talk-back products
are now going the way of the Liberal Party. In the last ten years or
more you'd swear GB and UE were being programmed from Howard's
headquarters. Hardly insightful or honest with radio audiences that
sit way beyond Sydney. UE's Laws and Price have long resonated along
the NSW and Qld eastern seaboard after some deal with the bizarre and
vast resources of Bill Caralis – which in itself is another and
malodorous story. In other words there are huge radio audiences
hopelessly disadvantaged by media networks allowed to deliver sub-
standard, irrelevant and skewed information and entertainment (??) via
our airwaves. It is more than time for radio industry regulators to
get off their buts and do an A-Triple C by calling for wider
regulatory powers.
goy
Thursday, 19 June 2008 12:13:46 PM
Bring back "Blue Hills" and all those wonderful radio shows that fired
our imaginations! Radio nowadays is only a sleeping pill for me when
insomnia wakes me at 3 am. Who wants to listen to a bunch of bullies
and egotistical idiots that talk crap most of the time. Here in
Melbourne the ABC breakfast slot is typical. The nose up in the air
attitude is palpable across the ether and no amount of football is
going to save it. I have switched off a long time ago. The lady on the
GPS sounds far better!
Rob Moston
Thursday, 19 June 2008 8:23:16 PM
Jones will always appeal to a core demographic of older, conservative
listeners and this explains why he has been winnig the breakfast shift
in Sydney for for well over a decade. Ray Hadley will almost certainly
step into his shift when he retires and provide GB with continuity.
The Parrot is 66 and probably only has another year or two in him on
air - if that.

The Sydney talk radio market is obviously a lot stiffer than it is in
Melbourne, with both 2UE and the ABC 702 competing with GB. 2UE could
make a dent on both GB and 702 if they improved their morning slots.
Mike Carlton's brand of sneering, second-hand "satire" is about 20
years out of date and Steve Price has always been far too 'Melbourne'
for Sydney Radio. 702 would not be enjoying its current run in the
ratings if 2UE got its act together.