The commercial radio world has never seen turmoil like it is experiencing now.

New owners, new management, new programming and more competition are threatening the profitability of the sector.

Audiences are having to come to grips with change too. In the Sydney market alone, there are five new breakfast lineups at the 10 commercial stations in the survey.

Until now, radio has done well to sidestep the digital disruption that has caused havoc for other legacy media players. But those days are over as podcasting and other entertainment options continue to grow.

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The first radio ratings for 2026 – covering the period January 18 to February 28 – are released on Thursday.

While broadcasters celebrate finishing #1 in their respective markets, programmers and advertisers watch the trends and look for consistency.

Nine Radio: Searching for breakfast stars, potential asset sales

Biggest share of all: Ross Stevenson and Russel Howcroft on 3AW in Melbourne

Watch out for: A new name for the talk radio network. It could get interesting if the inexperienced new owners, the Laundy family, don’t take the advice of their management. Cash could be raised by doing a deal to sell the music stations 2UE, 4BH and Magic to ACE Radio which currently leases the licences.

Needs to be better: Brisbane’s 4BC and Perth’s 6PR need to find a way to lift audience share. 4BC was below 5% all of 2025, while 6PR fared a little better with all surveys bar one under a 7% share.

This will be the penultimate survey result for the network before new owner the Laundy family hands over the cash to Nine Entertainment for 2GB, 3AW and the rest of the talk network.

2GB had a bumpy 2025 survey year with the station average ending the year on a low of 11.2% after peaking at 14.2% just two surveys earlier.

Ben Fordham at 2GB breakfast was consistently sitting above the station average. His low point was a still respectable 14.2% mid-year and he peaked at 16.8% in two of the last three surveys of the year.

There was much interest in 2025 how Mark Levy would perform in mornings as the heir to Ray Hadley’s show. While his investment in a Sydney restaurant crashed and burned, Levy performed a lot better on air, starting the year as Sydney’s #1 morning show and then being able to boast three surveys with share over 15%, just as Hadley had done the year prior.

While 2GB gets the lion’s share of attention at Nine, it is Melbourne’s 3AW that can lay claim to being home to the highest rating metro breakfast show in Australia. 3AW breakfast with Ross Stevenson and Russel Howcroft delivered a share over 20% for three of the final four surveys in 2025 and never dropped below an 18% share.

3AW has at times felt like the neglected child answering to Sydney-based owners, something that is evident from the recent blow-up after Sydney sacked long-time Melbourne newsreader Tony Tardio. His social media feed on X is a very lively read as he continues to dump on his previous employer.

The new owners are conscious of keeping 3AW happy it seems with the Herald Sun detailing how Arthur Laundy recently dined on veal schnitzels at Lamaro’s in South Melbourne with announcers Ross Stevenson and Russel Howcroft, Tom Elliott, Jacqui Felgate and Jimmy Bartel.

Nova Entertainment: Betting the house on new Sydney breakfast

Fitzy, Wippa and Kate are going national

Watch out for: For a business historically focused on not changing announcers, the company has rolled the dice this year, flipping Sydney breakfast and the national drive programs. How will this impact ratings? There has also been musical chairs at Brisbane breakfast with a sacking and re-hiring. Can Smooth FM continue to be the quiet achiever after a bumper 2025?

Needs to be better: Smooth Melbourne could lift. After six surveys in 2024 in double figures, that only happened once in 2025.

In Sydney, Nova 96.9 station share was locked between 7-8% all year, which ranked the station fourth in FM.

In breakfast, Fitzy and Wippa ended their breakfast years strongly with four of the eight 2025 surveys over 8%, after achieving that just twice in 2024 and only once in the previous five years.

The decision to give Sydney breakfast to Tim Blackwell and Ricki-Lee Coulter is aimed at getting the station ranked higher and a must-buy for advertisers. While it is a new breakfast show, Nova will be trading on the goodwill the duo had in drive. In that timeslot last year they battled to be #1 FM with KISS drive duo Will and Woody.

Nova 100 Melbourne finished the year also ranked fourth in FM after battling with Fox all year for third place, behind leaders Gold and Smooth. Kiis 101.1 refugees Jase and Lauren scored big time when they arrived at Nova breakfast but the honeymoon period ended with the show trending down from 11.5% at the start of 2025 to three surveys under 9% to end the year.

In Brisbane, Nova 106.9 didn’t rank first all year, finishing second behind Triple M in Survey 8, and ranked third of four FM stations four times. The station axed Ash Bradman and lost Nikki Osborne after she stepped away after 12 months. Nova convinced Susie O’Neill to return to breakfast after a break of just one year, and hired Nick Allen-Ducat (aka Ducko) from the Hit Newcastle breakfast show. Nova won five of the eight breakfast surveys in Brisbane last year, including the final three, which makes it puzzling why Ash was let go as Susie returned.

Adelaide’s Nova 91.9 ranked #3 in a market with just four commercial FM stations. Breakfast also ranked #3 for most of the year. Anything could happen in the breakfast market though, as former Nova Adelaide duo Ben and Liam return on April 1, but this time on Kiis 102.3.

Perth remains a solid market for Nova 93.7 despite the station slipping behind Gold 96FM in two surveys mid-year. Joel Creasy is continuing in a guest role for the time being on the Nathan, Nat and Shaun breakfast show as he prepares for his own solo lunchtime network show starting next month.

Looking at the Smooth stations, Sydney’s 95.3 started and finished the year #1 overall, with its most recent share sitting at 13.0%, way ahead of its closest competitors KIIS and Gold. Smooth 91.5 Melbourne ended 2024 as #1 FM on 11.4%, a ranking it didn’t replicate across 2025 with Gold #1 in all surveys as Smooth’s share failed to reach double figures.

Smooth doesn’t spend big money on breakfast salaries, yet Sydney breakfast ended 2025 ranked #2 FM behind KIIS while in Melbourne breakfast with Mike Perso was at #3 FM behind sister station Nova and FM market leader Gold.

ARN: Rebuilding Kiis in major markets the focus

Carry the load: Christian O’Connell at the 2026 Heard conference (Mumbrella)

Watch out for: Be careful of whiplash as you try to keep track of the challenges facing the Kiis network in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide. The company is sweating Christian O’Connell’s initial ratings at Gold 101.7 in Sydney and his impact on DAB+ in other markets.

Needs to be better: Board oversight of key decisions, especially regarding Kiis. Relationships between Kiis and advertisers, relationships between programmers and the talent, with the aim of making it unnecessary to employ even one censor.

Where to start here. It all seems a bit of a shambles as we start trying to understand what is happening in Sydney.

It’s hard to believe that prior to 2026, ARN boasted the top two FM breakfast shows in the Sydney market – Gold 101.1 and KIIS 106.5. The breakfast shows driving both stations are now no more. Gold’s Jonesy and Amanda was moved to network drive and Kyle and Jackie’s breakfast show exploded in extraordinary circumstances.

Carrying the load of the Gold network on his shoulders is Christian O’Connell, which is why he gets the big bucks. At Sydney’s Gold 101.7, the pressure is on O’Connell to keep as many of the J&A audience as he can to maintain existing advertisers. That means a Sydney share of 8% or better. That should happen, but you can’t take anything for granted when it comes to radio ratings.

He continues to shine in the Melbourne market on Gold 104.3 where he was #1 for six of last year’s eight surveys with share peaking above 11% three times. O’Connell trails the station average, though, thanks to the strength of at-work listening. Network drive potentially benefits this year as the rest of the country warms to Jonesy and Amanda in their new timeslot.

At Kiis 106.5, Sandilands and Henderson will either be on air together again or not. I’m trying to keep it simple, as there are so many outcomes being thrown around. None of them is really a win for ARN.

If the pair return, ARN still faces the onerous contract the board authorised and the prospect of advertisers continuing to be wary (despite the additional ACMA licence conditions). If both or either one doesn’t come back, ARN is without a market-leading FM breakfast show and has to start the build process again, not to mention the potential legal brawls. New content boss Dave Cameron knows only too well the challenges of building a breakfast show to replace Kyle and Jackie O.

Whatever the outcome in Sydney, the Kiis network looks like having to rebuild a local Melbourne breakfast show at Kiis 101.1 as returning K&J to that market would seem unlikely.

In Sydney, Gold and Kiis have been battling for overall FM station glory with Smooth, but in survey year 2025 Smooth got the upper hand ranking #1 FM all year.

In Brisbane, Kiis 973 had an amazing backflip earlier this year, reinstalling Robin, Kip & Corey just a few weeks after sacking them. For some reason the Kiis programmers thought Craig Lowe might have been the answer. Lowie had the breakfast show dragged away from him before he even started, and he now hosts Lowie Live on the network from 9pm to 12 midnight, presumably still on breakfast bucks as outlined in his ARN contract.

The bottom line for Robin, Kip & Corey will be to maintain a share in low double digits, which is where the station sat in 2025.

ARN has rolled the dice too in Adelaide this year, dropping Hayley and Max at Kiis 102.3, a duo who lasted just 12 months (having replaced Ali Carle). ARN has surrendered the Mix brand in that market and its third breakfast show in a little over 12 months will be Ben and Liam starting on April 1. The benchmark for them in the ratings this year will be improving on the not too shabby 11% breakfast share the station averaged across 2025. That helped drive a station share over 13% which saw it running a close second to Triple M overall.

Gold 96FM had one of its best years in Perth during which it managed to unseat Nova as market leader twice with station share peaking at 17.1% mid-year, which is better than anyone else managed all year. Breakfast at Gold is hosted by one of the icons of Perth radio, Lisa Shaw, who now co-hosts alongside Russell Clarke (he replaced Dean Clairs midway through 2025). Breakfast share saw Gold rank #2 across three surveys early last year, yet it finished 2025 in either third spot.

SCA: Familiar challenges in Sydney for new content boss

2Day FM’s Nath and Emma: Plenty of room for improvement

Watch out for: Results seem to indicate the strategy of focussing on 25-54, where SCA is claiming wins in 36 consecutive surveys, is paying off. Will that winning streak continue in 2026? After the merger with Seven, could SCA breakfast shows find spots on 7plus?

Needs to be better: It hurts to write this again 13 years later, but … ratings at 2Day FM. Listeners will come when they build the right show and it hasn’t happened yet. Maybe they are getting close with the opportunity in the Sydney market.

Now Australia’s biggest TV and radio broadcaster, SCA is the most stable in terms of talent lineups. Just two minor tweaks at its 10 metro breakfast shows for 2026. The new year promises innovation on air though, as the Hit and Triple M networks plus Listnr explore how they can combine with resources at the Seven network.

Sydney continues to be the market with the most upside for the Hit and Triple M stations, and the market where new content head of broadcast audio Matthew O’Reilly will probably spend most of his time.

Hit station 2Day FM had another year as the lowest-ranked commercial FM station in Sydney. With something like 10 lineups in a little over 10 years it’s understandable why they didn’t blow it up and start again in 2026. The good news for the pairing of Nath & Emma is the bar is set low for them with 2Day FM breakfast ending 2025 on 2.9% after peaking at just 3.9% earlier in the year. The station average is little better sitting on about 4%.

At 104.9 Triple M Sydney, breakfast hosts Beau, Cat & Woodsy are now the FM market’s heritage act! Their station’s share peaked at 6.4% last year while their best breakfast show performance was 5.9% yet they ended 2025 with two surveys close to 4%.

In Melbourne at Fox, Fifi, Fev & Nick were off the pace with breakfast share creeping above 9% just three times in 2025 with a low point of 7.2%. It’s probably their lowest ratings since 2021-2022 when Covid and its aftermath saw more people choosing news as their breakfast preference. Station share at Fox slumped too with a year end on 7.4% ranking it #3 FM.

On sister station 105.1 Triple M, Mick (Molloy) in the Morning with Roo, Titus and Rosie ended 2025 on 6.4% after five survey results over 7% in 2025. That’s a good result for a station that hasn’t hit 8% since the end of 2019, the penultimate year of The Hot Breakfast with Eddie McGuire.

Brisbane’s Hit network station B105 breakfast with Stav, Abby and Matt started 2025 on top for one survey and then was never far off the pace in a market where little separates the four FM stations.

104.5 Triple M Brisbane has long been the breakfast battlefield for Marto who celebrates 25 years at the station in 2026, where he now co-hosts with Margaux and Dan. They were close to posting the station’s best breakfast year in over a decade. Station share was strong with a win in seven of the eight surveys.

Former Melbourne Demon Bernie V and co-host Emma G have been hosting Adelaide’s SAFM breakfast since the end of 2024. One of two lineup changes at SCA is Bel Sloane joining the show. The audience drifted in and out of breakfast last year with a low of 6.8%, while two of the three most recent surveys broke above 9%. That wasn’t enough though to make SAFM competitive, as it continues to rank a distant fourth among just four commercial FM players.

In a studio down the corridor at Triple M another former AFL player continues to storm the market as Roo (Mark Ricciuto) with Ditts and Loz won seven surveys which helped the station overall to rank #1 in five of eight surveys.

In Perth, Mix 94.5 with Pete & Kymba ended 2025 ranked #2 in two of the three final surveys and SCA will be hoping for continued growth. Miracles can happen – Mix knocked off Nova twice two years ago, just as Gold did this year.

At Triple M, with Xavier Ellis and Katie Lamb in breakfast, the station continues to rank #4 overall with share hitting double figures twice mid-2025. Breakfast share was consistently above the station average with the hosts hitting #2 in the market a couple of times, including the final survey of last year. But what matters most to SCA around the country, Xav and Katie perform well 25-54, justifying the decision to sign the duo to a long-term contract last year.