Malcolm Turnbull appears to want to mend fences with shock jock Alan Jones, reaching out to the broadcaster to end his office’s boycott of 2GB. Jones, full of confidence in his own influence, says Turnbull needs to appear on his program or his election chances are sunk. He told The Australian:
“We have had this kind of nonsense in the past with people like [Kevin] Rudd and [Julia] Gillard and even Paul Keating. I simply have said that no one has ever won an election by not appearing on my program.”
But like Rupert Murdoch’s prized possession itself, Jones might be overstating his own case a bit (The Australian has backed the wrong horse almost 40% of the time since the 1975 constitutional crisis). Jones’ audience share is dropping, from 19% of the Sydney market in 2011 to 15% last year. And he has just 5% of the Brisbane market.
It is true that John Howard, Kevin Rudd, Tony Abbott and even Julia Gillard appeared on his program. But you know who else has spoken to Jones? Kim Beazley, Mark Latham and just about everyone running for federal office, win or lose.
Jones’ audience is older and more conservative than the Australian population, and their numbers are dwindling. Maybe it’s time for Turnbull to show the right-wing shock jock that he’s not the kingmaker he thinks he is.
It’s hard to imagine anyone aged under 40 would tune into Alan Jones.
I’m appalled to learn his Brisbane audience is as high as 5%.
I’ve actually met a few twenty somethings over the years, who have been Jones listeners. Each one of them was exceedingly strange. Each time I did wonder who this Alan was that they kept on gibbering about and who they seemed to admire? Was it a disturbed older relative? Was it a particularly unpleasant flatmate? Eventually it clicked.
Anyone who has ever won a lottery without exception bought a ticket.
“Pollie. What a cracker!”
15% of the Sydney market of what? AM radio, FM radio, digital radio, what? And what percentage of the overall contemporary media market does that represent anyway? Miniscule? The parrot probably gets more coverage from the spin-off to other media than from his program. We know News Corp will always lap him up, but why do Crikey, Fairfax or other quality journals bother to give him oxygen anymore? Stop feeding the sad old………
To paraphrase, “By their advertisers shall ye know them”. His audience is overwhelmingly considered to be Eternity’s Waiting Room, his ads are for incontinence pads, retirement homes, annuities and reverse mortgage shysters.