Wollongong commercials win back local audience in latest survey

The latest Nielsen Media Research survey released this week shows strong rises for both i98FM and WAVE-FM at the expense of Sydney stations.

Between them, the two leading stations were able to lure back some 13,000 listeners each week from the capital city up the road. First placed i98 scored a cume of 108,000 listeners a week, while WAVE had 801,000, ABC97.2 scored 472,000 and Power had 372,000.

I98FM PD, Dave Stretton, (pictured) had double reason to celebrate. Not only did his station rise to #1 with a 5.2% increase to a 27.6% share, but his own 9am – Midday shift jumped 7.3 to 28.2%.

“I’m in celebratory mode”, Stretton told radioinfo, “This survey’s shown we’re back on track. I’m thrilled that local listening increased at the expense of Sydney stations.”

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WIN Corporation’s Deputy Chairman, Andrew Gordon, is thrilled with the results: “These latest figures show a fantastic growth across the board on last year’s survey results and re-affirm i98’s position as the Illawarra’s leading radio station.

“Not only has there been an increase in our results, but in radio listenership in the Illawarra as a whole. The improvement of local radio quality has led to listenership being taken from Sydney stations.

“I am especially proud of the excellent team effort, displayed by i98’s talented on air and behind the scenes crew, which has ensured we are the number one choice for Illawarra listeners. Special mention must also go to the Programming Department, led by Dave Stretton.”

At WAVE-FM, which also won significant increases in cumes, PD Steve Parsons agrees, “It’s the first time in years that Wollongong commercials had such a dominant share of the local audience,” he said.

Stretton acknowledged, “Both stations ran pretty good survey promotions“.

Parsons said, “We should be jumping for joy, instead we’re just quite happy”. WAVE had a 2.6% increase to record a respectable 22.3% share behind i98’s 27.6. The next best station, at 10.3 is the ABC’s FM97.3.

Station Overall this
survey
Overall last
survey
Breakfast Morning Afternoon Drive  Evening
i98 27.6 22.4 25.5 28.2 29.7 27.0 31.6
WAVE 22.3 19.7 22.7 22.9 24.3 18.4 16.8
ABC97.3 10.3 12.4 13.3 7.9 6.9 8.0 13.7
Power 3.9 3.8 3.3 3.4 3.2 3.4 5.2

 

For all other results see our Nielsen ratings page (Click below). Ignore the double entries in our database – we’ll have it fixed soon.