RAJAR Q3 2010 – Comment

At a time when iPods, iPhones, and iPads seem to be taking over the world this quarter’s RAJAR results have been great for Radio as almost 91% of the entire population are tuning in every week! And this growth has mainly been boosted by the Commercial Radio sector as stations grow their audience.
talkSPORT have helped to drive this growth with an outstanding performance during quarter three. Their highest ever set of figures of almost 3 million weekly listeners were no doubt boosted by the World Cup finals but it would be great to see the station sustain the figures into the next quarter. Absolute Radio have also delivered their best set of figures since the re-brand from Virgin, aided by Absolute 80s bringing in over half a million listeners.
And here’s a thought for you…. today it was announced that ITV’s Daybreak show achieved 530,000 viewers. Did you know that there are six stations in London alone whose breakfast shows have more listeners than that!

RAJAR Q3 2010

Magic 105.4 takes the number one spot in London as Commercial Radio closes the gap on the BBC

In the London marketplace Magic 105.4 has won the battle for the top spot beating off strong competition from 95.8 Capital FM. By achieving both the highest reach (2,149,000) and the highest share of listening hours (6.7%) Magic can undoubtedly say they are the number one radio station in London against All Adults. In terms of reach Capital were not too far behind them, delivering over 2.1 million listeners themselves (2,125,000), a massive 16.9% year on year increase. Looking at share, Capital and Heart 106.2 are in second equal position with 5.3% followed by Kiss and LBCwho are level on 4.9%.Commercial Radio as a whole will be very happy with this quarter’s set of figures as again it has taken listening from the BBC. On a local level commercial radio delivers almost 27 million listeners compared to just 9.1 million for the BBC’s local and regional services. Nationally, commercial radio has also gained from across the board with share of listening now split at 43.4% for commercial radio verses 54.3% for the BBC. Returning to the London marketplace and the much talked about ‘battle of the breakfast shows’ has been won again by Johnny and Lisa on 95.8 Capital FM. The duo managed to bring in over 1.1 million listeners to their 6-10am breakfast show, that’s 189,000 more than Chris Moyles on Radio 1 achieves in London! Jamie and Harriet on Heart (6-9am) have managed to hang on to their position of second most listened to commercial breakfast show. Despite a slight dip in listening, they still talk to 834,000 listeners every week. Rickie, Melvin and Charlie on Kiss 100 (6-9am) also dropped off this quarter and were beaten to the third spot by Magic’s Neil Fox (5.30-9am). These shows achieved results of 669,000 and 787,000 respectively, whilst Nick Ferrari over at LBC(7-10) improved on his figures, moving up to 627,000 listeners, not quite enough to push him into fourth position. Briefly looking around the regions….. in Northern Ireland, Cool FM reached 364,000 adults (37% of all available adults in their TSA Total Survey Area). In Stockport the micro station Imagine FM delivered 28,000 listeners (8%). Broadcasting across Yorkshire the regional station Real Radio pulled in 293,000 (10%) and in Coventry Merciaachieved 145,000 listeners (22%). Focusing on the North East, the soon to be re-branded Galaxy Radio has performed well increasing its reach to a total of 607,000 listeners, up from 553,000 last quarter (more on that the rebrand later). The quarter has also been good for Metro Radio in Newcastle as the station grew its reach by 16,000 listeners, now delivering 393,000 adults. TFM in Middlesbrough however has fallen away slightly on last quarters figures, now reaching 195,000 (down 5,000). Star North East also lost listeners this quarter going from 48,000 to 37,000. Real Radio and Smooth Radio, which, like Galaxy, both cover off the whole North East region, had mixed results. Smooth were up slightly to 385,000 listeners and Real Radio were slightly down to 301,000. Classic FM remains the most listened to (single) commercial radio station in the UK with a reach of 5.6 million adults, showing a year on year increase of 4.2%. But when looking at the national stations it is talkSPORT that should take all the plaudits as they have brought in record figures of 2.9 million listeners! No doubt aided by the World Cup finals, the station achieved a 19.6% year on year increase and was up 18.1% quarter on quarter. For the second quarter in a row, Absolute Radio has also seen their best set of figures, up 14.8% quarter on quarter to a reach of 1,115,000 adults 15+ across the UK. Staying with Absolute; with the addition of Absolute Radio 90s (203,000), the second set of results for Absolute 80s (564,000) and improved results from Absolute Classic Rock (303,000), the Absolute Radio Network now reaches over 2.4 million listeners. Digital listening has grown slightly to account for a 24.8% share of all radio listening, with 36.6% of people claiming to listen to digital radio, either through DAB; DTV; the internet or ‘other’ (e.g. smartphone applications). The latest RAJAR figures recorded 35.4% of adults claiming to live in a household which has a DAB receiver, up from 32.3% last year. Bauer’s digital stations continue to remain strong in the digital only UK market. The Hits and Smash Hits both achieved over 1.1 million listeners, making them the two most listened to commercial digital only stations. The independently owned, Sony Digital Radio Station of the Year, Planet Rock takes third position achieving year on year growth of 10.6% and now reaching 783,000 listeners. The UK’s largest commercial radio group is Global Radio (19.9 million listeners), the owners of the Heart Network of stations which delivers almost 8 million listeners across the UK. The latest news to come out of Global Radio is their plan to roll out the Capital brand across a number of stations throughout the UK. The combined reach for those stations set to become Capital in January is 6.7 million listeners so we can expect to see this make a dramatic impact on the UK radio marketplace (for more information on this rebrand please feel free to contact a member of the RadioWorks team). Bauer Radio is the second largest commercial group, with a 13 million reach. GMG Radio who recently launched Smooth on to the National DAB platform will expect to see increased figures from this in their next set of results, but for now they reach just short of 5.2 million people.UTV Radio, including talkSPORT, delivers almost 3.9 million reach. As alluded too earlier this is the first set of RAJAR results for Absolute Radio 90s, a digital only station currently broadcasting in London on DAB and across the UK online. Absolute Radio will no doubt be happy with these first set of figures as the 90s station achieved a weekly reach of 203,000 adults. This set of RAJAR results also registered the name changes of Mercury FM (Herts) and Mercury FM (Surrey & Sussex) to Heart Hertfordshire and Heart Crawley & Surrey respectively. The stations had mixed results with Heart Hertfordhire improving slightly to 35,000 and Heart Crawley & Surrey dropping to 81,000. It’s also the first RAJAR for the newly re-named Nova Radio Weston (was Star Radio in North Somerset), which delivered 17,000 listeners. Sunrise Radio, which broadcasts in London on analogue and across the UK via digital (online and DAB) has shown a year on year increase of 7.9% and now achieves a reach of 506,000. Panjab Radio delivered 194,000 listeners, an improvement of 25.2% on last quarter. Finally, listening to the radio via a mobile phone should also be mentioned as 12.8% of adults and almost 31% of 15-24s claim to listen in this way. Many radio stations are now providing smartphone apps to enhance the mobile listening experience and a recent RAJAR study has found that 20% of all Smartphone owners have a radio app. While podcasts are also proving very popular – Absolute Radio alone had 3.5 million podcasts downloaded in September 2010. That’s it from me for now. If you have any questions on RAJAR or if you would like any further information please feel free to contact your RadioWorks representative or alternatively email Simon@RadioWorks.co.uk SOURCE: RAJAR Q3 2010