If this week has shown us anything, it’s that when Alan sneezes, politicians still catch a cold.
So perhaps its time to call out that imaginary illness. It’s time politicians stopped pandering to Alan; he’s not the all-dominating radio-ratings machine he’s perceived to be.
This past week’s Opera House/Everest horse race saga is a perfect example of how decision-makers seek to appease him when he honestly doesn’t have the numbers to support it.
Alan Jones boasts of having helmed the Number 1 breakfast show in Sydney every day since 2011 with a whopping 19% of Sydney radio’s audience.
He’s built a powerful reputation on the back of these numbers, and politicians, like scolded school-kids, are afraid of being on the receiving end of a famous Jones spray or weeks of unrelenting public shaming.
And why wouldn’t they, when apparently 1 in every 5 people in Sydney listen to him?
Except, the truth is, they don’t.
Let’s take a journey into a reaaaaallly old ratings process (it uses written diairies!) and as we admire this penny farthing of a process, I’ll explain the system that’s used to get to that 19% number and why it doesn’t mean this at all.
There are three units of measurement that are used to calculate what the 5 million people of Sydney are listening to on the wireless:
- How many people are listening to a station at any given moment (Average)
- How long people listen before the switch off or over (Time Spent Listening)
- How many people are listening cumulatively – at any point – across a whole show (Total audience/Cume)
The final percentage, the magic number known as Share, is calculated based on 1 and 2 to show how the radio-listening pie is divided between stations at any given moment.
Because Alan has a lot of listeners who don’t know other stations exist, he has a substantial block of people who listen for a large block of his show.
In other words the people that do listen, are in it for the long haul, raising his show to that 19% number.
But it’s number 3 that politicians should really focus on – total audience.
Based on the latest ratings, Jones’ total audience is 498,000 people, and of those, just 61,000 are aged 18-39.
To put that in context, of the 18-39 year olds listening to radio at the same time Alan is on-air, there are approximately 1.2 million people listening to other stations.
- Nova – 245k
- KiisFM – 243k
- SmoothFM – 197k
- Triple J -147k
- 2DayFM – 129k
- Triple M -111k
- WSFM – 101k
Think about that.
There are almost 20 times as many young people of voting age listening to anything other than Alan each day.
Yet, you can’t tell me politicians are as concerned about these people as they are appeasing Jones and his listening-acolytes.
When we then look at those people over 40, Alan has 245,000 listeners.
The same cluster of other stations have 1,061,000 listeners in that 40+ age bracket listening.
Again, almost 4 times more people deemed ‘Alan Jones aged listeners’ don’t want a piece of what Alan is saying.
Again, these people are also by default dismissed by politicians who clamour to make Jones happy.
I don’t deny that Alan has a big, enthusiastic audience – and that’s a credit to him as a charismatic broadcaster.
Yet, as already mentioned, if this week has shown us anything, it’s that when Alan sneezes, politicians still catch a cold.
But that’s totally warped; politicians need to stop thinking if they make him angry, they’ll lose a crucial block of voters.
Alan doesn’t represent the views of 19% of Sydney.
I’m sure for politicians it’s unpleasant to listen to someone like Alan or his callers rant about you, but directing policy in his direction is wrong.
If they really want to silence his criticisms, don’t fold to him, do what the rest of Sydney does – listen to someone else.
