RAJAR Q1 analysis

21 May 2015 - Editorial

Your radio listening figures go down for the first quarter of the year between January and March, so you try to find solace in your year-on-year stats. Your station locally didn’t do so great, so you bundle it in with the rest of your group’s portfolio and see if you can conjure up some increase there instead, masking your own poor performance.

Yes, here we go again with the quarterly spin-fest that is the official UK radio listening stats, just released at midnight from RAJAR. As ever, we’ll cut through that spin and give you the hard-facts, uncomfortable as they may be for some.

Starting in the UK’s biggest marketplace, Magic returns to the position of being London’s No.1 commercial station. ‘Commercial’ is key to this stat though. Once more BBC Radio 4 (2.897m listeners in London each week) and Radio 2 (2.3m) trump the Bauer station into third place overall, sitting on 1.911m. Kiss drops to fourth (1.883m) and Capital fifth (1.793m), edging out Radio 1 into sixth place (1.563m). Magic gained almost 150,000 listeners whilst Kiss lost 29k and Capital lost 76k. Bigger losses were seen at Heart (down 250k) and those days of it attracting 2 million-plus in London a few years ago are way behind them, standing now on 1.533m, putting them in seventh place. Capital Xtra took a kicking as did Smooth and Xfm but Global’s spin merchants will tell you that their entire portfolio of stations (including those three brands) attract a total of 23 million listeners per week across the UK, masking just how rough a quarter they’ve generally had when you scratch the surface.

Kiss programming boss Andy Roberts told us at a Brits after-party recently that he was hoping to keep the station flying high after becoming London’s no.1 commercial station during Q4 2014 and he’s tweeted excitedly this morning that they are the no.1 commercial brand in the city for 15-24s, 15-34s and 15-44s, which is a brilliant achievement by anyone’s standards, all beating Radio 1, Capital and Heart in total reach.

Looking at how Kiss seems to mop up under-30s with ease, Radio 1 has had a disaster, whatever way you want to cut it. The station’s weekly reach now stands below 10 million for the first time this decade (9.699m). It’s down 7% on the quarter at just 18% total, that’s down 8.4% year on year (or two percentage points from 20% in Q1 2014). Audience share is down too and they’re listening for less time too. Yes, Ben Cooper and the team will cite a change in under-25’s radio habits and the success of their YouTube channel. But you’ve got to ask how much longer they can convincingly trot out that line when their commercial rivals seem to be holding up and even building an audience in those key demographics?

Over at Radio 2, Bob Shennan, Jeff Smith and all of our friends there will be pleased to still be reaching over 15 million listeners a week and their 18.1% total audience share is the best number they’ve seen this decade. However, the weekly reach is down by a percentage point to 28% and they’ve lost almost half a million listeners in the past 12 months. They can take solace however in still being the nation’s favourite music station by far.

Much will be made of the success of Radio 4 Extra on DAB. They’ve scored their best-ever weekly reach and audience share and now eclipse 6Music with 2.172m listeners for the re-branded station that was formerly known as the rather non-descript sounding Radio 7. If you don’t know the station, think of it as Radio 4’s archive channel, playing classic comedy like Yes Minister and Steptoe plus documentaries and dramas from the vaults. By the way, 6Music itself stays above 2m listeners again and delivered a solid set of stats once more, consolidating its position in the crowded marketplace, marginally ahead of Radio 4 Extra if you measure their listening hours.

In the niche musical world, Planet Rock and Kisstory on DAB both hit record numbers (1.24m and 1.13m weekly listeners respectively).

Digging further into digital, Absolute 80s remains the leading commercial station on DAB and its audience soared again. 1.448m listeners tune in each week (its highest weekly reach in history) and the audience share of listening grew by a massive 70% year on year. Seems like our love for Bonnie Tyler, Bananarama and those three decade-old tunes shows no sign of ever abating. Major label catalogue departments sitting on a wealth of mainstream Top 40 pop classics, please take note.

So, plenty to smile about for the teams at Bauer in London. Less so regionally where Key 103 in Manchester took an utter pummelling at the hand of rivals Global with their Heart brand, amongst others.

In the national battle at breakfast, Grimmy at Radio 1 delivered just 5.5m listeners, the worst figures for the show since 2003, when Sara Cox was unceremoniously dumped in favour of self-styled saviour Chris Moyles. Over at Radio 2, Chris Evans also lost listeners but still attracts 9.46 million listeners per week, making him Europe’s most listened-to radio show.

So, to the big numbers. 47.8 million adults (aged 15+) listened to radio during that first quarter of 2015. That’s 89.3% of the adult population of the UK, down from 91.6% four years ago, but still a huge number. On average they listened for 21.3 hours each week or just over 3 hours a day. 54% of the population tune in via digital each week and that share is the highest ever, just short of 40%. It could exceed analogue listening via traditional sets quite easily within the next 3 to 5 years. Already more people in London are listening to digital over traditional analogue so expect that trend to carry on increasing. Almost one in four adults nationally listen to radio via smartphone or tablet with 34% of under 25s doing so. That’s up 4% year on year.

All in all, our listening habits are changing, but the medium of radio remains vibrant and with more choice than ever, delivering a strong loyal audience is becoming harder and harder. The next set of figures drop in August. Like the recent General Election aftermath, there are clearly worrying signs that a few key radio leaders may be handing in their resignation before the summer is through if some of the latest trends continue. Have your tin hats at the ready, folks.

Lee Thompson