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RAJAR comes around again, hot on the heals of last week’s ARIAS. These are largely the summer months, and end on the 17th September. Summers during even years are “quiet” in that there are no major (men’s) football tournaments or Olympic games to disrupt normality. But it’s not unusual for stations to see slight dips in audiences with their listeners going away, or spending more time outside and less time listening.

First of all, a quick update on digital listening.

Last quarter, you will recall, digital listening had reached a record high of 48.7%. So what’s it done this quarter?

48.8%.

It’s slowly creeping upwards, but no real growth over the summer. I still anticipate the magic 50% being reached within the next two quarters however.

National and Digital

Radio 1 had a generally good quarter. Following on from gains last time around, they’re up another 1.2% this quarter (although down slightly on the previous year), to nearly 9.7m listeners. Hours have fallen however, down 4.3% on the previous quarter (although a more modest 0.7% fall on the previous year). As has been mentioned here regularly, the impact of hours is the bigger issue for Radio 1 as their listeners spend less time with radio and more time with other audio and video services.

Radio 2 saw growth of 3.2%, which means nearly 500,000 people. It’s up on the previous year as well. In hours, the results are even better with increases of 5.5% on the quarter and 6.0% on the year. Radio 2 accounts for 17.5% of all radio listening.

Radio 3 had a disappointing quarter, down 4.8% in reach on the quarter (although only down 0.7% on the year), while hours fell 11.9% on the quarter and 9.7% on the year. The station has had some recent changes to its schedule and presenters, but these will take time to bed in.

After some very strong performances, Radio 4 fell back a little this quarter down 2.9% on the quarter (and 3.1% on the year). Hours are much more stable however, and none of this is anything for the station to worry about.

Five Live saw its reach dip 4.7% on the quarter and 7.9% on the year. Hours remained broadly flat. The lack of major sports events over the summer is a likely contributor (although it was a different case for Talksport – see below).

Last quarter I note that 6 Music’s slight fall was likely to be a blip, and so it proved. Reach grew 8.7% on the quarter, and 3.8% on the year, to 2.43m. And what do you know? This represents a new record all time high! Hours increased on the quarter although were still slightly down on the year. The station is clearly fighting fit, and almost certainly among the beneficiaries of an ever growing digital listenership.

1Xtra and Asian Network both got quarterly increases, while the World Service fell back this quarter.

Bauer’s key national brands performed well this quarter.

The Absolute Radio Network increased in reach by 1.6% on the quarter (3.7% on the year) now reaching 4.5m people, although hours fell slightly on the quarter, but still managed 5.2% growth on the year.

Within that, the main Absolute Radio brand bounced back from last quarter with a 16.9% increase in reach (but down 6.9% on last year), while hours grew 19.0% on the quarter (and 13.1% on the year).

Absolute 80s saw some modest growth of 1.3% on the quarter (but down 1.1% on the year) in reach, while hours fell both on the quarter and on the year. It is being chased hard by Heart 80s, which saw reach increase 27.5% on the quarter while hours increased 25.2%. Absolute 80s has 1.532m listeners, while Heart 80s has just past the million mark with 1.086m. In terms of hours Absolute 80s has 7.316m v Heart 80s 4.851m. This is going to be a tight battle of the 80s stations.

The Kiss Network itself achieved a record reach of 5.7m, up 5.4% on the quarter (4.8% on the year), with hours growing a substantial 18.7% on the quarter (5.3%) on the year. Kisstory continues to do well with 1.8m reach (up 5.1% on the quarter (13.2% on the year), giving it a new record reach and solidifying its position as the biggest commercial digital-only station.

The Magic Network reach also was a record, with 3.7m listeners, up 3.2% on the quarter. Mellow Magic is the biggest sub-brand with 519,000 but essentially flat on the quarter.

Over at Global, there are some slight declines at the two biggest brands. The Heart Brand (which includes all the Heart stations including digital sub-brands) is flat, slightly falling 0.7% on the quarter (and falling 1.2%) on the year. Hours are up on the quarter however. I’ve already noted that Heart 80s is doing well, and Heart Extra is up on the quarter, but down somewhat on the year. The Heart Network represents all the local Heart stations around the country, and that’s also flat in reach (down 0.8% on the quarter and down 1.2% on the year), while hours are down 5.7% on the quarter (and down 1.2% on the year).

For the Capital Brand, the reach is again basically flat, and hours are up a fraction. Capital XTRA is doing well, up 22.6% in reach on the quarter (and 10.6% on the year), while the main local network is down a little in reach (down 3.7% on both the quarter and year), but flat in hours.

LBC has had another strong set of results, up 2.3% on the quarter (and 15.7% on the year), with hours increasing even more. The station continues to make news with its political presenters – even the stand-ins!

The Smooth Brand had a decent set of results, up across the board, while Radio X performed very well, up 9.5% in reach (20.4% on the year), and up 5.6% in hours this quarter (up 15.5% on the year).

Finally, Classic FM fell back a bit this quarter down 6.0% in reach and down 8.8% in hours. On the year it fared better.

Over at Wireless Group, Talksport had a decent quarter despite a lack of major sport. Reach was up 11.6% on the quarter, while hours were up 31.5% over the same period. The numbers weren’t quite as strong on the year, but the station is closing in on 3m again.

Sister station Talksport2 is also up a little on the quarter, up 1.8% in reach, but down 11.8% in hours.

It wasn’t a good quarter for Talkradio, which is still struggling to find its feet. Reach is down 6.9% on the quarter (and down 15.8% on the year), while hours were down 0.4% on the quarter (but down 17.8% on the year).

Virgin Radio, on the other hand, had a very strong quarter, seeing reach grow a steller 52.7% on the quarter (up 61.2% on the year), with hours up 39.6% on the quarter (and 24.8% on the year). And this all pre-dates Sam and Amy taking over breakfast from Edith Bowman.

London

As ever Radio 4 is London’s real number one. But nobody wants to know about that. How are the music stations doing?

Well Capital is number one in reach, although last quarter’s numbers have taken a bit of a hit. Reach is down 8.1% on the quarter, but up 5.6% on the year. Hours are flat on the quarter but up on the year. This was still early days for Capital’s new Roman Kemp breakfast show. However that’s not good enough to be number one in hours terms. That accolade goes to…

LBC. Their FM reach (AM is a different station) are actually down a 21.3% on the quarter, and hours down a massive 22.9%, but both are up on the year, and last quarter’s figures were massive, so a fall was on the cards. A reminder – I always say you should look at longer term trends than one off results.

As for Kiss? They are down on the quarter in terms of reach, dipping below 2m again. Down 8.7% on the quarter (although up 2.8% on the year). However hours are somewhat extraordinarily up 35.4% to 11.5m in London (that’s a 25.3% increase on the year). That’s the station’s largest hours for a couple of years.

Heart has dropped away a bit, to 1.515m reach, down 10.9% on the quarter (and down 10.0% on the year). Hours have suffered worse though, falling from 8.9m to 7.3m – a 17.8% drop on the quarter and 20.5% fall on the year. That’s not great news for the brand’s flagship station.

Magic has recently changed breakfast show too, with Ronan Keating and Harriet Scott taking charge over the summer. But they’re only partially included here. The station is flat in reach on the quarter (but down 14.6% on hte year), while hours have increased on the quarter, up 13.7%, but are still 11.3% down on the year.

Radio X is pretty flat with reach up 0.4% on the quarter (but 25.4% up on the year), and hours drifting slightly, down 2.5% on the quarter and down 3.2% on the year.

Finally BBC London, which had some record figures last quarter, has seen them fall back a bit, down 26.9% in reach (although up 7.1% on the year), while hours are down 20.6% on the quarter (although up a very similar amount on the year).

The London market is still volatile in the way it’s reported, although as I mentioned at the start, we have to be a little wary over the summer months.

Note

I seem to have written this quarter’s results without using a single chart. I’ll try to right that next time around!

Further Reading

For more RAJAR analysis, I’d recommend the following sites:

The official RAJAR site and their infographic
Radio Today for a digest of all the main news
Go to Media.Info for lots of numbers and charts
Mediatel’s Newsline will have lots of figures and analysis
Paul Easton for more lots analysis including London charts
Matt Deegan will have some great analysis
The BBC Mediacentre for BBC Radio stats and findings
Bauer Media’s corporate site
Global Radio’s corporate site

All my previous RAJAR analyses are here.

Source: RAJAR/Ipsos MORI/RSMB, period ending 17 September 2017, Adults 15+.

Disclaimer: These are my views alone and do not represent those of anyone else, including my employer. Any errors (I hope there aren’t any!) are mine alone. Drop me a note if you want clarifications on anything. Access to the RAJAR data is via RALF from DP Software as mentioned at the top of this post.