Southern Cross shed listeners across its Today's Hit Network in Sydney and other key markets despite a much-hyped rebranding, the year's first radio ratings survey revealed.

ARN's national content director Duncan Campbell took confidence from the survey, which showed its star Kiis 1065 breakfast team, Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O (Henderson), still enjoyed a hefty lead over SCA's 2Day FM in Sydney.

Breakfast audience share for 2Day – which has struggled to grow ratings since the defection of Sandilands and Henderson to ARN in 2013 – remained flat at 3 per cent compared with Kiis 1065, which eased from 11.3 to 10.7 per cent.

"You need breakfast to be strong for the station to be strong these days," Mr Campbell said.

"Having a brand like Kyle and Jackie O in breakfast enhances the whole radio station. That's the challenge SCA faced really today.

"I would go so far as to say the Hit strategy across the country has failed for them today."

Mr Campbell said if soft ratings continued at 2Day, Hamish and Andy would face a "huge challenge" when they start hosting their national drive show on SCA from July.

"To be honest, if the results for the Hit network continue, then they will be coming onto a network that will have a very weakened audience base, probably 60 per cent less audience than they had when they were at their peak," he said.

"They will have a real challenge ahead of them. That's not taking away the fact that they are very good talent, obviously.

"But when they were at their peak previously, all those stations had strong breakfast shows and strong audiences. So they're moving back onto drive in a very different landscape."

SCA shifted its drive team Dan Debuf and Maz Compton to breakfast in January. The broadcaster's head of content Craig Bruce said it had "work to do" across three stations – 2Day, hit107 in Adelaide and hit92.9 in Perth – while seven were in "good shape".

"The [survey] result really just reflects the road we're on, which is a long one," Mr Bruce said.

"Breakfast habits don't change overnight but if we're good enough for long enough we know we'll build a strong following for Dan and Maz."

He was upbeat about Triple M in Melbourne, saying its breakfast team – Eddie McGuire, Luke Darcy and Mick Malloy – delivered a "powerhouse show".

"The MMM network is in very good shape right around the country as it continues to build on its position as the No. 1 network for males."

Triple M was Melbourne's No. 1 FM station, firming 0.5 points to 8 per cent. 2Day's sister station was next best, despite easing 0.6 points to 7.8 per cent.

In Sydney, Alan Jones continued his dominance with his 2GB breakfast show firming 2 points to 16.8 per cent.

The ABC also had a good start to the year, with Robbie Buck's breakfast show jumping 1.7 points to 11.5 per cent.

In Melbourne, 3AW maintained its lead as the No. 1 station, rising 0.8 points to post a 13.8 per cent audience share across all sessions. ABC 774 was next best, also rising 0.8 points, to 10.3 per cent.