Breakfast radio has a long way to go towards gender equality, with a new report finding 68 men and 24 women have presenting roles in the coveted time slot.
The report looked at 40 metro breakfast shows across AM and FM radio and found that not a single woman presents a show independently, but eight men host solo.
The Mumbrella report, which covered metro shows only, found that the ABC was the most male-dominated network in the AM time slot, with all five metro breakfast shows fronted by men. A spokeswoman from the ABC lamented the fact that the report looked only at the AM time slot, as when viewed across the day, the ABC is showing an “increasingly gender balanced line-up”.
The first radio ratings survey for 2017 has also just dropped.
In the lead-up to what must be a relatively terrifying day for programmers, execs and hosts across the nation, 2Day FM host Em Rusciano shared her thoughts, fears and gratitude with her fans and followers in a lengthy Facebook post on Monday.
In her post she spoke of the huge challenge of hosting breakfast radio, thanking 2Day FM for the freedom they have offered her and pre-empting the possibility of a ratings drop. The network has had a shaky few years, with The Em Ruscinao Radio Show being the fourth major programming change in as many years.
However the day has brought good news for Rusciano and the results bode well for more women in radio, with her show bumping 2Day FM’s breakfast audience share up to 4%. Despite the bump being a marginal .02% from where Ruscinao’s predecessors Rove and Sam had languished at the close of 2016, it is a win nonetheless.
It is KIIS FM, owned by the Australian Radio Network, that has the most gender balanced breakfast line up with a near 50/50 split. — Isabelle Amy
obviously not abc radio
also out in the regions in wollongong in particlular WAVEFM has at least given the female co-presenter top billing [as opposed to WS Jonesy and Amanda where Amanda has a much higher cross media profile]
What about radio national???!!!
Is Fran Kelly deemed not to be the breakfast shift, or not metropolitan enough?
Seems odd that someone who is broadcast nationally would be disqualified from such a survey, when, as far as I understand, she would actually be broadcast into all of the metro markets. I would have thought that she would also be qualify to be considered a solo female breakfast presenter, but I don’t know the criteria of the survey.
“The ABC is the most male-dominated network in the AM time slot.” Hang on there, I think this is a simplistic analysis. It might be correct if one just looks at the number of radio outlets (aka stations) and adds up numbers of male and female presenters. But this biases the results against the ABC which offers three national networks (two with female presenters) plus a local breakfast programme in each capital city. So, if one tunes to the ABC in a capital city, there is at least a 50% chance of hearing a female presenter.
If you don’t accept that argument, consider that each ABC Radio network operates on a different frequency in each market. So, to be fair and accurate, the calculation of the proportion of male and female presenters should look at each individual ABC outlet, which would also yield at least 50% female presenters.
Despite the right wing rants about the ABC observing International Women’s Day by having all female presenters, no one pointed out that the favourite radio voices of the right wing (think Jones, Hadley, Smith and Mitchell) are exclusively male. Nor was it widely noted that the ABC’s female presenters on IWD were, largely, semi regular presenters, and not special celebrities brought in for the day.
Finally, what if the ABC’s breakfast presenters are overwhelmingly male? I would rather listen to the likes of the curmudgeonly Red Symons (ABC Melbourne) than suffer the formulaic and vacuous inanities that characterise most commercial FM stations.