Alan Jones/Jason Morrison and the damaged duo, Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O, were big winners from survey five of Sydney radio, out today.

Their audience shares both rose, especially Sandilands and O, who saw rises in their numbers across the Monday-to-Friday broadcasting week.

The rise in Sandilands and O’s audience will be used to answer criticism of the duo over the notorious lie detector skit: the argument will go something like this: “See, the audience doesn’t care, more people tuned in!”

And their radio stations, 2GB and 2Day FM, would be very happy to have them aboard and performing, dragging in the loot from advertisers made gun shy by the global financial crisis and economic slowdown.

Without the Jones/Morrison duo (who seem to be on air as much these days as a sickly Alan Jones is) and the now-suspended Kyle/Jackie O, the two stations would not be a solid, nor would their parents.

The two stations are a clear one and two in the Sydney radio market and they are the clear first and second in the breakfast slot — the richest and most competitive media market in the country.

Jones/Morrison lifted share to 17.8 from 17.6 in survey four. Sandilands and O lifted their share to 12.0 from 11.4. They went off air in the final days of survey after the stupid lie detector stunt involving a 14-year old girl.

In terms of the stations’ performance, 2GB remains top, despite a 1 point fall to 13.8 (with Ray Hadley in mornings a big contributor, something that won’t stand him in good stead when the question of who will replace the increasingly sickly Alan Jones next arises. Jason Morrison seems to be the insider runner following his stand-in efforts).

2DayFM lifted lost 0.3 of a point to 11.6 in the latest survey, making the efforts of the dreaded brekkie couple even more valuable to the sidestepping management of 2Day. It’s now writing soppy letters to listeners who have complained about the lie detector stunt.

ABC local radio’s 702 was third in market and in breakfast with lower share: the station slipped a large 1.8 to 9.1, with Adam Spencer in breakfast off 2 to 10.9. Deb Cameron in mornings fell to 8.1, down a large 2.4. Richard Glover was down 1.3 in Drive, but is still the best AM talk host in that timeslot.

Fairfax radio’s 2UE had a good survey, up 1.1 to 6.7, with the pairing of Mike Carlton and Sandy Aloisi up 0.5 of a point to 6.6.

ABC FM lost 1.3 to 3 in the survey. Nova rose 1.1 to 8.5 and Vega fell 0.1 to 3.5. Triple M fell 0.9 to 3.6 and near oblivion for its audience, while Triple J rose 0.2 to 4.2. Mix FM and WSFM also rose.

The success of Kyle and Jackie in boosting the fortunes of 2Day and Austereo, has no doubted contributed in some small part to the latest attempt by Kirby family interests and Graham Burke to take Village Roadshow private. Village controls 55 per cent of Austereo. And Macquarie Radio will take a $3.8 million profit write-down (which will cut pre tax earnings to $500,000) on the cost of online and digitisation, simply because Alan Jones earns so much for them, followed by morning announcer, Ray Hadley.

The latest cumulative audience figures confirm their dominance. Kyle and Jackie O still had the largest audience figure, 607,000, up 42,000 in the survey, for which they will probably be paid a big bonus by 2Day FM (without much fanfare). There are stories around the radio industry that Sandilands is on a bonus of up to $100,000 for winning each survey. The rise in the size of the audience will be used by them and 2Day as an answer to the criticism of the car crash style of radio broadcasting they use and exploit for millions of dollars a year in profit.

The Jones/Morrison pairing had a cumulative audience of 443,000, up 1,000. Nova boosted its breakfast audience by a strong 42,000 over the survey weeks to 528,000. ABC 702’s fell to 414,000 from 453,000.

Meanwhile, in Melbourne Fairfax radio station 3AW remains top of the pile with an unchanged Monday to Friday share of 16.7, ahead of FoxFM which fell 0.4 to 14.4 in the 5th survey.

In contrast to the performance of 702 in Sydney, ABC local radio’s 774 in Melbourne lifted share 0.8 to 13.8, not far behind Fox.

Like Nova in Sydney, Nova in Melbourne had a good survey, lifting its share to 8.5, up 0.7. Vega also rose down south to 5.3 from 5.1 in survey four. ANC FM went south, again, losing 0.7 to 2.2 and Triple J rose 0.1 to 3.7, but its sister station in Sydney is doing a lot better.

3AW’s breakfast pairing of Ross Stevenson and John Burns lifted share 0.2 to 21.8 and dominated all timeslots. Red Symons on 774 lifted share 0.4 to 16.1 and is running a clear second ahead of FoxFM’s crew which saw its share fall 0.7 to 12.5. That’s in contrast to the performance of Sandilands and O in 2Day FM breakfast in Sydney.

Neil Mitchell lifted share in morning for 3AW to 17.4 (up 0.3) and John Faine on 774 saw his figures rise by half a point to 15.2 and clear second.

In drive Hamish and Andy on Fox lifted their share by 1.3 to 20.7, which was the biggest rise in the Melbourne market Monday to Friday. 774’s weekend programs lifted its share by a large 2.2 to 15.2.