Talk is king overnight according to the latest survey figures on mid dawn listening.
Once a year at this time, Nielsen Media Research surveys the usually neglected late night timeslot in Melbourne and Sydney to grab a snapshot of overnight listening habits.
The mid dawn hours are not collected every survey because the sample size is generally thought to be too small and the results do not change very quickly, so mid dawn announcers have to wait until the once a year report card on their progress comes through at this time.
The survey shows the midnight to dawn shift attracts 1.8 million people every week nationally.
In Sydney, the two top overnight stations, 2GB and 2UE, are both talk and have a combined 38.8% share while in Melbourne the top two stations, 3AW and ABC774 are also talk and have a combined 38.1%.
Add the 3rd talk station and the total is 45.9% in Sydney and 46.2% in Melbourne, and ABC stations Radio National and NewsRadio drive the talk share over the half way mark.
Once a year there is some much deserved attention given to these hardworking talk presenters as a result of the Neilsen mid-dawn ratings in a rolling survey over 7 weeks which is released with Survey 8.
This year’s Sydney results show a changing of the guard in mid-dawn, which has been won for the last decade by John Kerr, whose show is networked to 38 stations in four States and the ACT by Southern Cross Syndication. Over at 2GB Jim Ball has been able to increase his audience by 6.1 share points since last year to a total of 23.1% of the audience, while John Kerr dropped 1.4 points to 15.7%.
To see the significance of talk radio overnight take a look at these results compared to their daytime shares, 2GB on 9.7% and 2UE on 8.8%.
The importance of mid-dawn programming is shown by the cumulative audience, over 7 days, of 993,000 people in Sydney listening from Midnight to 5.30am.
In Melbourne Keith McGowan at 3AW has again won the mid-dawn ratings with 21.5%, ahead of his nearest rival Madeleine Randall on ABC774 (and all local radio network stations) with 16.6%. The ABC result also includes some of the audience from the successful Tony Delroy program, which ends at 2am.
Even low ranking 3AK’s Leigh Drew has 6.6%, up from 3.9% last year, in comparison to 3AK’s daytime results of 1.2%. Overnight 3AK is number 5 of 14 on the rankings table.
3AW’s Keith McGowan says he “doesn’t keep count” of the results, but he thinks this is his 6th or 7th consecutive win.
The cumulative audience of all people listening to mid-dawn in Melbourne is not far off Sydney’s with 914,000 people.
The majority of mid-dawn listeners are aged over 40, with many being 55+. The number of people listening is generally highest between 4am and 5.30am, with home the place where most Australians listen overnight (74%), followed by work (13%) and in the car (12%).
The talk host has to perform at a time when the brain wasn’t meant to be at work and has to keep over 5 hours of talk entertaining to a large audience who depend on the radio for company, either through insomnia or loneliness. Not to mention the ever-growing number of people who work overnight in our cities.
Of the music stations, Fox was the most listened to in Melbourne (13.7%) and Triple M (6.9%) was the most listened to overnight music station in Sydney.
So next time you see your mid-dawn presenter give him or her a warm thank you for looking after things so well overnight, and to such a large number of listeners.