Stevenson and Howcroft dropped from an average 145,000 listeners to 134,000 this survey, and are down from 166,000 a year ago, while Mitchell has dropped from 134,000 to 130,000 listeners this survey, and is down from 148,000 this time last year.

Meanwhile, the gap between 3AW on the AM dial and its nearest rival, FM station Gold, has narrowed significantly. Racking up its 21st consecutive victory as the top-ranking FM station, Gold suffered a small drop (down 0.2 points to an 11.8 per cent share) but is now just 2.7 points behind 3AW.

With his 18th straight FM breakfast win, Christian O’Connell might seem unassailable as the king of that space were it not for the fact there were big gains from a couple of rivals while the Englishman was going backwards (from an 11.2 per cent share to 10.5).

The big movers in this survey were Fox’s breakfast team of Fifi Box, Brendan Fevola and Nick Cody (up 1.2 points to a 9.5 per cent share), Nova’s Chrissie Swan, Sam Pang and Jonathan Brown (up 1.4 to 9.5 per cent), and Lauren Phillips and Jason Hawkins on KIIS, who climbed from 6.5 to 8.1 per cent share. In fact, KIIS enjoyed a lift across every session, to see its overall share grow to 7.6 per cent (up 1.1) this survey period.

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One of the most significant shifts in listening habits remains the defection of younger listeners from Triple J to Smooth FM. The shifts across the board for both were small this survey period – the ABC’s supposed youth station was down 0.2 points (to 3.7 per cent), while its “easy-listening” rival was up 0.1 (to 9.3 per cent) – but there was mass movement in the crucial 18-24 demographic, where Smooth gained 4.6 percentage points in that segment while Triple J lost the same amount.

In fact, more people aged 10-17 are listening to 3AW than to Triple J, a sure sign that the station is struggling in its stated brief of appealing to young listeners.

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