Show fails to make waves

Radio Live breakfast host Marcus Lush has a lot less to celebrate this week. Photo / Janna Dixon

Radio Live breakfast host Marcus Lush and his co-hosts might have the best show in town but hardly anyone is listening to it.

New ratings show Radio Live is failing to make great strides against its dominant competitor NewstalkZB despite its investment in high-profile presenters including Wanganui mayor Michael Laws and the combative duo of Willie Jackson and John Tamihere.

However, it seems to be enjoying critical success with Radio Live securing 16 nominations for the 2010 NZ Radio Awards against NewstalkZB's 12 nominations.

Veteran broadcaster Brian Edwards said yesterday that quality did not translate into ratings and that Newstalk ZB might just be too big to beat.

The new audience figures show Radio Live is the 12th most popular station in the country with an audience of 164,200 people aged 10 and above. NewstalkZB has 405,100 listeners.

Radio Live 9am-noon host Michael Laws rubbished the figures, saying he did not trust the quality of the data. Laws is nominated for Best Talkback Host.

"The radio ratings game is a con, and I would say that whether I was number one or number 101. I don't believe the way in which data is assembled is credible.

"Someone being expected to enter everything they're listening to into a book for six weeks is not credible. It defies human nature."

Newstalk's Mike Hosking, nominated for Best Talk or Current Affairs Host, had a different reaction.

"It's been a pretty good week really," he said. "I'm very, very pleased about it. Stoked, in simple terms. Normally in summer you expect to lose a bit to sport, but we've gone up, which is unusual. The results show a significant lead on the opposition."

Dallas Gurney, general manager of talk programming for The Radio Network, said the "exceptional" results showed NewstalkZB was still the top talkback station and he expected competitors to be disappointed.

Edwards said Radio Live would always struggle against Newstalk ZB in the ratings despite being a "quality" programme.

"When you have a very small audience it can be extremely difficult to increase that audience," said Edwards. "I suspect that the advertising spent to promote themselves [Radio Live] would be far less [than ZB], so the big boys are able to stay big and lead, rather than those small fry stations at the bottom.

"I believe it has very little to do with quality."