Conventional wisdom suggests that elections are good for talk stations in the same way grand finals are good for football stations. Not so, if Survey 4 results, which took in most of the marathon Federal Election campaign, are anything to go by.

ABC Local Radio was down in every capital city except for Melbourne where 774 posted a gain of 1.0 to solidify second place in the market. But even the Melbourne result could be more to do with a natural bounce back from an unusually poor showing last time than anything to do with an election.

However, Linda Bracken, ABC Radio’s Head of Content & Digital, puts at least some of 774’s success down to its particularly strong coverage of local issues. In other markets, though, Ms Bracken feels that the length of the election may have caused political fatigue among listeners, “We have seen in some markets people move from talk to music. What we saw with Local Radio, overall, was that the reach was up in most places but people weren’t hanging around for quite as long during the election period.”

Of the major commercial talk stations only FIVEaa enjoyed a substantial increase (1.0) which was good enough for second place in the Adelaide market. 6PR Perth did okay with 0.6 gain. 4BC Brisbane managed to do little more than hold its ground with a 0.2 gain and a 5.0 share overall. 2UE also edged upwards to reach a 4.0 share.

Meanwhile, the major political talk powerhouses, 2GB in Sydney and 3AW in Melbourne both lost ground. Not that it bothered Macquarie Media’s CEO, Adam Lang. Why would it? Despite the losses, both stations remain firmly entrenched in first place.

Like Linda Bracken, he blames a long election and listener fatigue. He says, “Over time Federal and State elections have had a neutral effect. While it is more our stations’ staple diet, there’s a hell of a lot more going on in terms of other media. And people do tire of it.”