While our focus was on the success of Nova Entertainment’s smoothfm last week in survey five, the stars of the Nova branded network remain Brisbane and Perth where both breakfast shows are #1 overall. Nova’s group program director Paul Jackson told Mediaweek: “Brisbane is equally comparable to what we have done in Sydney with smoothfm. The station has had the highest cume in its history with 603,000 and #1 share. The team there under [GM and program director] Jay Walkerden and [marketing and assistant PD] Dee Curtis live and breathe the brand and have a very clear vision and execute everything brilliantly. Ash, Kip and Luttsy have done remarkably well in a market where the competition is tough. The station didn’t just win, it dominates.
“It was a sterling performance in Perth again too from Nathan, Nat and Shaun with another record cume for their station.”
“We won’t be making any changes into 2017.”
As to Nova Sydney and Melbourne, Jackson said the stations will do better. “In Melbourne Chrissie, Sam and Browny haven’t had a book that has gone down and we are closing the gap every survey on the leaders. We are #1 25-44 with females and the station is not far away from a big improvement.”
Paul Jackson
Jackson is happy with the talent at all stations. “We won’t be making any changes into 2017. We have a great drive show and an outstanding evening show with Smallzy and five fantastic breakfast shows. It has been a great year for us.”
When asked if the gigantic salary that Kyle and Jackie O will be extracting from ARN had put pressure on any of the Nova or smoothfm contracts, Jackson said: “The only person who wants to be paid more is me!” Asked about performance clauses in his contract, Jackson laughed: “I set mine way too high!”