Today, the changing radio habits of older South Australians, a shake-up for advertising in SA, redundancies at the ABC and more.

Oldies drop 891

The final ratings survey of 2014 showed up some interesting shifts, particularly in the age demographics.

ABC 891, which overall had an excellent ratings year, lost some ground – mostly among the oldest listeners.

891 dropped 3.2 per cent in the over 65 category, with FIVEaa picking up some of that demographic.

The ABC also managed to keep some of those listeners, with its Classic FM station increasing its share of the older listeners by an impressive 2.1 percentage points. Mix102.3 also improved its position with the over 65s.

Maybe the older and wiser among us decided that after the year we’ve had, it was time to clear the mind with some relaxing music.

The demographics are curious for FIVEaa as well. The talk and sport station picked up listeners in almost every age bracket with the exception of the 40-54 group. These listeners seem to have moved en masse to Triple M, which is celebrating its best performance for a long time.

As we reported this week, it was an excellent survey for FIVEaa.

Its breakfast team of David Penberthy, Mark Aiston and Jane Reilly just pipped 891’s Matt Abraham and David Bevan to leap into equal top spot in the key shift. The numbers, though, are very close and Matt and Dave are wily operators. Next year will be a telling one for both talk stations.

Bah humbug

The tortured redundancy process grinds on at ABC’s Collinswood studios.

This week a handful of editors received a dreaded “potential redundancy” letter from management.

There is some confusion about what the letters mean. While management suggests it’s something like a friendly invitation to staff to voluntarily fall on their swords, ABC staff across the country are viewing the missives as a precursor to getting the boot.

In that vein, the situation in the Adelaide office continues to be confused, messy and terrible for morale. Things should become clearer after Christmas.

On a related topic, local ABC staffers are increasingly peeved with their eastern states’ comrades (if that’s possible).

There was a degree of tired outrage earlier in the week at the kinds of figures floated by managing direct Mark Scott and gleefully jumped on by the Murdoch press – including the Sunday Mail – about the alleged high cost of the Countdown and Beatles documentaries, both produced in Adelaide. Locals in the know believe some intensely creative accounting must have been engaged to pump up the costs so high.

Scott revealed to a Senate inquiry that the ABC spent $506,000 per broadcast hour to make the 50th anniversary Beatles doco, and $363,000 for each episode of the Countdown tribute. Locals believe Scott must have added the Sydney tea lady’s wages to the bill.

Also ruffling feathers was the case of a very high profile eastern states ABC reporting star, who landed in town recently to conduct a single interview.

The journalist brought along three interstate staff to produce and film the interview. Which seems rather extravagant in the current climate and not a little insulting to local ABC staff.

A new era for sports broadcasts

Among the gloomy news about the media industry this year were some welcome developments, particularly in the realm of sport.

Two stand-out local broadcasting achievements were Channel Seven’s excellent coverage of the SANFL football, and the SACA’s live streaming of Sheffield Shield games, complete with local commentary.

Both achievements show what can be done in the new era of broadcasting to maintain and improve diversity of coverage.

Shake-up for SA advertising

News this week that KWP advertising will absorb the local branch of Clemenger BDO is a double-edged sword for the local industry.

On the one hand, it’s a shrinking of opportunities for local advertising professionals – and is likely to lead to the loss of some jobs from Clemenger.

On the other, KWP will have critical mass to pitch for more national accounts.

However, it wasn’t quite the 100 per cent happy news presented in local media this week.

Clemenger chairman Robert Morgan told national marketing website Mumbrella his week that the Adelaide marketing industry was shrinking.

“We’ve had a fantastic run in Adelaide over a long time. Adelaide as a marketing city has seen a lot of clients move interstate, it’s become a much smaller market. We were looking at options, one of them was we’d take over KWP, the other was the opposite. In the end we agreed to their proposal.

“Now you’ve got an agency of some size and resources that can be competitive not only locally but across the country.

“It was the logical thing to do. We’re sad to be leaving Adelaide but this is the right decision for most of our people and our clients.”

Salary subtlety

There was a pointed aspect to a tiny item in The Australian on Thursday.

Rupert Murdoch’s national paper published details of the salaries of Premier Jay Weatherill’s staff.

They were a week late the party – the salaries and conditions had been gazetted on 11 December and widely discussed and reported.

The article went through the highest paid of the advisers and then mentioned the $110,410 salaries paid to “the other 14 media advisers, including Kate Baldock, who works for Attorney-General John Rau“.

Why was Baldock singled out from the 14 spinners?

It couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that she’s suing The Australian for defamation, could it?

Merry Christmas

This is the last Media Week for the year. The next column will be published on 16 January.