Smooth FM extends brand across Australia
Ten years after launching in Sydney and Melbourne, NOVA Entertainment is taking smoothfm across Australia with live and local content in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, supported by a multi-million dollar marketing campaign. The new stations and advertising campaign will start from 5 September 2022.
As well as taking smoothfm’s winning ‘feel good’ formula to even more Australians, the launch also provides advertisers with a national platform to reach more listeners across the country.
Smoothfm has become one of the most successful media brands in the Australian radio landscape. The first Australian radio station to be programmed based on a mood rather than an era or genre, smoothfm’s playlist is curated to make listeners ‘feel good’ with announcers handpicked to complement the music format. The new markets will now have live breakfast shows hosted by respected broadcasters, Kate Mac in Perth, Nick Michaels in Brisbane and Kellie Golding in Adelaide, providing a local connection and content for listeners in these states.
The brand has attracted a highly engaged audience across broadcast with 2.4 million listeners in Sydney and Melbourne, a 291% increase in cumulative broadcast listeners since launching in May 2012*, and a further 76% increase in audiences accessing the station via streaming from March 2020 to July 2022**.
Peter Charlton, NOVA Entertainment’s Chief Executive Officer said, “The organic discovery of smoothfm outside of its traditional FM heartlands has shown that the brand transcends geographies, with something for all Australians. With more and more listeners turning to DAB+, coupled with the rapid uptake of smart speakers and mobile devices for consuming audio, we felt the time was right to give smoothfm a national platform whilst ensuring a level of localness that our audiences expect. The investment and focus for this launch is at the level we would see for a traditional broadcast brand campaign, which is a reflection of the scale of the opportunity NOVA Entertainment sees in taking smooth across the country. We can’t wait to bring the feel good to even more audiences.”
Reflecting the opportunity presented by the growth of smart speaker listening, smooth is partnering with Amazon Alexa to assist listeners in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth in discovering the brand. An integrated partnership will see the popular ‘smooth stars’ promotion delivered nationally for the first time and with the help of Alexa on air, listeners will learn how to engage with their Amazon device whilst enjoying their favourite ‘feel good’ station.
Nick Young, NOVA Entertainment’s Chief Commercial Officer added, “Whilst smoothfm has always been available to audiences outside of Sydney and Melbourne, with new breakfast shows and localised advertising output in five capital cities we now have a truly national proposition to offer advertisers. With the additional of the smooth relax, smooth vintage and smooth 80s stations, we have a portfolio of ‘feel good’ content in brand safe environments that we know our clients love.”
NOVA Entertainment has worked with a number of category exclusive commercial partners for the launch of smooth across the country including Apia, Complete Home Filtration, Bedshed, Beaumont Tiles, Barbeques Galore, Crown Perth, Plico and John Hughes Group.
Listen to smoothfm Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide on digital radio, smart speaker or via the smooth player app.
Source:
* smoothfm launched on 21 May 2012 with a 4.1% share in Sydney and Melbourne and 275,000 and 337,000 listeners* respectively - Source: Sydney & Melbourne radio survey 4, 2012, Nielsen radio ratings.
In the most recent radio survey, smoothfm 95.3 secured record cume of 1,289,000 and smoothfm 91.5 cume of 1,107,000 and was the #2 FM station in Sydney (9.7%) and Melbourne (9.3%) - Source: GfK Radio Ratings, Survey 5 2022, SM, Cume (000s), Mon-Sun 530am -12mn, AP 10+
** smooth Streaming secured 76% growth in cume from March 2020 to July 2022. Source: Triton Streaming Metrics, March 2020 v July 2022, Metric = Cume.
About NOVA Entertainment
NOVA Entertainment is Australia’s fastest growing audio entertainment business, creating experiences loved and shared by audiences. NOVA Entertainment owns and operates the Nova Network (Nova 96.9 Sydney, Nova 100 Melbourne, Nova 106.9 Brisbane, Nova 93.7 Perth and Nova 919 Adelaide), smoothfm in Sydney and Melbourne, FIVEaa in Adelaide, Star 104.5 NSW Central Coast and the DAB+ stations - smoothfm, smooth Relax, smooth 80s, smooth Vintage, Nova Throw Back, Nova 90s, Nova 10s, Nova Noughties and Coles Radio. The company’s broadcast offering is complemented by a range of on-demand assets across digital, social, mobile and podcasting, with a comprehensive local and international content slate, in addition to Australia’s premium intimate live music brand, Nova’s Red Room.