This time last year Guy Ashford, the NEWFM & 2HD general manager, proudly proclaimed “that we’ve bounced back and the tides are changing,” in reference to a small lift for NEWFM off its lowest ratings ever.

He told the Newcastle Herald: “NEWFM did lose its way but it’s back on track, and it’s going to offer NXFM some serious competition. Within 24 months we’ll be on an even playing field with NX.”

This seemed a bold claim, even if it was meant to be a morale booster for the troops.

Ashford had just been installed as the new supremo at Sandgate and had apparently promised owner Bill Caralis a significant turnaround in ratings and revenue for 2HD and NEWFM. On this site, we went to great lengths to spell out the challenges Ashford would face in achieving these ambitions. We strongly doubted it would happen any time soon.

Twelve months later we have the corresponding Newcastle Radio Survey results and the picture is not a good one for NEWFM & 2HD.

NEWFM is back down to its historical low-point of 5.6, having fallen in both surveys so far this year. Its breakfast show, headed by Program Director Steve St John, has plumbed new depths by falling to 4.1. This is the lowest breakfast ratings ever for NEWFM. In fact, NEWFM has gone down in every shift except evenings.

NXFM has more listeners (51,000) for its Evening program than NEWFM has (37,000) for its Breakfast show.

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Over at GetSticky I have just posted Advertisers now in charge. It discusses how the changing media landscape and the rise of Inbound Marketing now allows advertisers to become cost-effective marketers and be less reliant on the traditional media to generate audiences for them to reach. Inbound marketing is a serious paradigm shift for business owners and marketers who can now attract relevant, motivated consumers to them when they are ready to purchase.

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The Newcastle Ratings, week ending July 25

SC Ten’s highest rating program, ‘Masterchef’ came to its sizzling end, taking out both Top Watched Program 1st & 2nd spots, averaging around the 130,000 viewers. However this wasn’t enough to topple NBN for the week. Meanwhile, Prime has been badly burnt during the Masterchef season and will be hoping that Dancing can revive their flagging fortunes. Getting beaten on a weekly basis by ABC is not a great look.

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National Ratings, week ending July 25
Source: David Dale, Sun Herald Blogs

Thursdays and Fridays are always slow nights, so the sudden slump of The 7pm Project (down from 1.28 million on Monday to 656,000 on Friday) should induce only moderate panic at Channel Ten. It’s still doing well with the 16-39s (who go out on Fridays). But if 7pm fails to recover this Monday and Tuesday, Ten will hear Yasmin calling, and the axeman will arrive with his friends The Simpsons. (Unless Ten puts Australian Idol on every weeknight at 7 — could anybody stand that much Sandilands?)

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I have been banging on at this site for over a year now about how the face of media and advertising is changing. The global financial crisis has managed to accelerate the changes that were already underway, and now we are starting to see confirmation.

If anyone is wondering why I have put so much effort transforming my Newcastle advertising agency into an Inbound Marketing agency then read this story we’ve just posted over at GetSticky. Its latest research from Forrester showing the massive change that has taken place.

If you still think that your business will survive based on old-fashioned Outbound Advertising alone then you may have a rude shock coming. Now is the time to start thinking Inbound. Start dedicating a reasonable amount of your marketing budget to creating an effective internet marketing strategy TODAY.

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The Newcastle Ratings, week ending July 18.

Prime seems to have hit an all time low in the stations ratings for last week. Rating only in the 15% bracket, with constant leader NBN up around the 30′s!
NBN had a good viewing week consisting of Origin and the Evening News, bringing its ratings up quite high. SC Ten is thriving well off its number one program ‘MasterChef’. Prime’s ‘Pack To The Rafters’, weekly makes the top watched programs, but doesn’t seem to be doing enough to push up the channel’s overall ratings.

Read on for the figures..

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National Ratings, week ending July 18
Source: David Dale, Sun Herald Blogs

The Grey’s Anatomy finale pulled an extra 200,000 viewers to GA, and helped Channel Seven push Channel Nine to third place in audience share.

Then on Friday, a non-competitive episode of MasterChef helped Ten to counteract any footy advantage enjoyed by Seven and Nine (and if you’re someone who prefers kicking to cooking, every bit of biffo for Friday and Saturday, no matter how esoteric, is presented in the charts below).

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*File under totally unrelated stuff*

I have just taken my first ever run in a pair of Vibram Five Finger shoes. They look crazy, generate funny stares and comments from passers-by and…..are amazing.

Vibram Five Finger Shoes

The theory behind Vibram Five Fingers is to simulate barefoot running and return us to the way humans were meant to run.

The introduction of bulky, heavily padded running shoes about 30 years ago has led us to develop an unnatural, heel-first running style. With Vibram Five Fingers there’s no way you can run that way, its simply too hard on your heels.

They say it takes a while to adjust to running in Vibram Five Fingers and that you should start out slowly. So I did.

My first run was just 3 km on mixed terrain. I started on a crushed gravel bush track, progressed to looser, rockier path then finished on bitumen so that I could test how they feel on different surfaces.

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Over at Marketing Magazine I have a new piece titled Its the package not the platform which discusses how the digitisation of media has led to a power shift in the producer/publisher relationship.

I believe that today we have a situation where the costs of publication are much lower and the lines are blurring between various media – now it’s all about the package rather than the platform.

You can read the article here. Please feel free to add your thoughts to the discussion in the comments section.

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Source: Mumbrella

Channel Nine’s long-anticipated digital spin-off channel GO! will launch on Freeview next month, the network has announced.  Nine CEO David Gyngell said GO! – which will be available on Freeview – will focus on the 14 to 39-year-old audience.

Programs on the GO! showreel, which come primarily from Nine’s warner deal, include:

• Survivor
• The Bachelor
• The Hills
• Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
• Dog the Bounty Hunter
• Gossip Girl
• CSI
• Seinfeld
• Curb Your Enthusiasm
• Wipeout
• Big Bang Theory
• Moonlight
• Neighbours At War
• Bad Lads Army
• The Wire
• Entertainment Tonight
• Weeds
• Just Shoot me
• Little Britain
• Aliens In America
• Eleventh Hour
• Privileged
• Fringe

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