Mumbrellacast

‘Imagine having eight performance reviews a year’: Adam Johnson on the joy and anxiety of radio surveys

July 13, 2023 10:24

by Darcy Song

The job of a radio host is not an easy one, said Nova Entertainment’s chief growth officer Adam Johnson. For those who think an annual performance review with their boss is stressful enough, he said, imagine doing that eight times a year with radio surveys.

Speaking on this week’s Mumbrellacast, Johnson said the survey day is never a single day, really, at radio stations. It a “pretty intense three-to-ten-day period”.

The publicity team will have to decide on the narrative it goes to market with, fast. But when the dust settles a bit the next day, the programming team will conduct a market and competitor analysis.

“And I’m really at pains to remind anybody who will listen that, you know, while that [one single survey] may look like a blip, let’s wait for the next survey before we throw the baby out with the bathwater,” Johnson said.

Nova managed to put itself ahead of its opponent B105 this survey in Brisbane, securing the top stop in the metro market’s overall share. Meanwhile, it’s also taken a significant chunk of the Perth audience and the Melbourne drive.

“Our breakfast shows are on air when the numbers come in … and we kind of try to shield them from it,” Johnson said.

“They [the hosts] come out of the show going: ‘Well, how did we do?’ And we have to make sure that we were very clear and concise on their movements from A to B and in what demos … to maintain a kind of excitement and motivation.”

Johnson is conscious that there are a lot of numbers in radio surveys. “Everyone can find a number one in a demo, in a time slot, or in a certain region if you if you want to,” he said.

However, the metric Johnson cares about the most is still the overall reach, as the North Star of its marketing-driven growth approach.

“The cume number across Nova Smooth, FIVEaa, our streaming is 6.4 million people, and that is a big chunk of the adult Australian population.

“We continue to focus on growing the audience. Brisbane is an area where I think there’s massive audience opportunity for Smooth. So we will have more marketing, PR and content focus there.”

Catch the full interview with Adam Johnson about Nova’s five markets breakdown, digital strategy and future investment on this week’s Mumbrellacast.