Time flies when you’re having fun and smoothfm seems to have had nothing but fun since it first went to air two years ago on Wednesday.
With a combined audience growth for the brand in both Sydney and Melbourne of 93%* And with a current audience of over 1.2 million listeners and a 6.7% share** in each market, who wouldn’t be laughing?
Next week radioinfo will feature an in depth interview with one of the fun loving fathers of its success, Nova Entertainment Marketing Director Tony Thomas (below left) who chuckles his way through a chat with Peter Saxon. But seriously, he has some interesting things to say about branding for radio in general as well as for smoothfm, Nova and the corporate entity, Nova Entertainment.
Another fun loving father of smooth’s success Paul Jackson, NOVA Entertainment Group Program Director said, “We launched smoothfm two years ago with a unique music position playing the greatest songs and best artists regardless of their era or genre. With a focus on creating an easy place for our listeners to relax, smoothfm has been warmly received and our consistent growth is testament that we have created a radio station that plays the songs that our listeners love.”
But it hasn’t stopped there.
Last December smoothfm entered into a strategic partnership with Foxtel to create smooth, the first Australian radio station developed into a TV channel and Australia’s first music channel dedicated to women.
In January 2014 smoothfm partnered with Sony to release smoothfm – All Time Top 50, a compilation album that debuted at number one on the ARIA compilation charts, spent five weeks in the top spot and achieved Gold status.
In April 2014 Sony released a new album CD smoothfm Presents – Music For Mum, that has spent two weeks at number one and has also gone Gold.
Yet more fun loving fathers and some mothers of smoothfm’s success feature on a strong lineup of weekday announcers. They include Richard Wilkins, David Campbell, Melissa Doyle and Cameron Daddo across nights and weekends. Over the past two years respected artists, from Robbie Williams, Ronan Keating, Michael Bublé to Seal, Keith Urban and Olivia Newton John, have hosted their own weekend shows on smoothfm.
* Source: Nielsen Radio Survey 3, 2012 compared to GfK Radio Survey 2, 2014 (percentage increase)
** Source: GfK Radio Survey 2, 2014