3AW footy coverage back on top

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3AW footy coverage back on top

Jesse Hogan | June 18, 2008

RADIO station 3AW's savage staff purge 12 months' ago, which cost
prominent reporter Craig Hutchison his job, has overwhelmingly
persuaded listeners to return to its football coverage.

But the task has been made easier by a huge jump in the number of
people listening to the football across the weekend, seemingly
inspired by the resurgence of Victorian teams this season.

3AW (owned by Fairfax Media, which also owns The Age) convincingly won
each of the Friday night, Saturday afternoon, Saturday night and
Sunday afternoon timeslots for the period from late March to early
June.

At the same point last year, the station was behind Triple M and 774
ABC in all slots except Saturday night, where it was No.2.

"This time our football (coverage) has really brained the opposition
and it's obviously one of the reasons why our (overall) audience has
increased pretty significantly as well," said 3AW general manager
Shane Healy, who has returned to calling matches this season.

Last year's popularity plunge resulted in the sacking of Hutchison and
executive football producer Ralph Horowitz just two days after the
ratings results, as well as Saturday morning hosts John Rothfield (Dr
Turf) and Trevor Marmalade.

Long-time caller Rex Hunt was ordered to tone down his excitement and
get "back to basics", while the team was expanded to include Dennis
Cometti and Nathan Buckley.

While 3AW leads its nearest rival by 5% on Friday nights and Sundays,
the lead is closer to 2.5% on Saturday afternoons and evenings.

Of the second-tier broadcasters (which are allocated the games 3AW and
Triple M choose not to cover, under the latest AFL deal), 774 ABC was
up in all but Saturday afternoons while SEN was up in all shifts
except Sundays.

Triple M football executive producer Lee Simon said: "When Victorian
football's doing well, coverage of the football's doing well."