RAJAR Q3 2018

RAJAR
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Radio 2

It has been something of a tumultuous period for radio in the last few months, and especially for Radio 2‘s line-up. First there was Chris Evans announcing he was upping and leaving Radio 2 to head to Virgin Radio, to be replaced by Zoe Ball in Wogan House. Then at the start of this week Simon Mayo announced he’d leaving his Radio 2 drivetime show where he had recently been paired with his “radio wife” Jo Whiley. He leaves the station altogether – although thankfully his Five Live show with Mark Kermode remains – while Whiley gets a new evening show, pushing Radio 2’s specialist music slightly later into the evening. Come January, the station is going to look and sound somewhat different to how it does today. No news yet on where Mayo might also go. The release on Monday mentioned a new two-book deal following the publication of his first adult novel, although he’s been writing young adult books for a number of years. I don’t think one precludes the other. Mayo also recently launched a book-focused podcast away from the BBC – I suspect that his Radio 2 book club, and the book review slot he had before that on Five Live, are both missed by publishers.

Digging a little into programmes is worthwhile. Chris Evans saw his show fall 2.4% on the quarter to 8.8m, but it’s down 5.7% on the year. Those are Evans’ lowest ratings in a while, although his announcement didn’t come in time to unduly affect them. In any case, I’d be amazed if we don’t see a bump in the next RAJAR release for his final shows.

There was a lot of interest in the Jo Whiley and Simon Mayo last time around, since if you believe the reviews, the show is not good – the chemistry between the pair reportedly wasn’t there (I don’t listen, so can’t really say). In spite of that, reach for the show increased last time around, not fitting the narrative. This time around it’s a different story. Reach is down 6.6% on the quarter and down 6.9% on the year – leaving the show with 6.0m listeners. Hours are also down, falling 6.7% on the quarter and 5.7% on the year. A little low for the slot?

Where does all this leave the station in the latest RAJAR – with all the current shows still in place? Well it’s down a little. Reach falls 2.0% to 14.6m on the quarter, although it’s down 4.7% on the year. Hours are broadly in line, down 3.1% on the quarter to 176m, while they’re down 4.2% on the year.

Before we go too much further, it’s worth reminding ourselves that this data is for summer 2018, from the 25th June until 16th September (at least for big national stations). Overall radio listening wasn’t too weather affected. Reach was down 0.4% on the quarter and down 0.9% on the year, but hours were up 1.0% on the quarter, but down 1.9% on the year. I remain most worried by that last number. Hours are still over 1 billion, and average hours are up slightly to 21.1 hours a week. The average age of a UK radio listener is 48.

That means that the Radio 2 has under-performed slightly compared with the radio as a whole. But it’s comfortably the UK’s largest station.

National and Brands

Over on Radio 1, Greg James moved into breakfast over halfway through this RAJAR period, so it’s not easy to say how he’s doing so far. However, Radio 1 itself, had a decent bump during the period. Reach was up 3.9% on the quarter to 9.6m listeners (although down 1.0% on the year), while hours were up 2.6% on the quarter (but down 0.5% on the year). Those are good numbers for Radio 1.

Elsewhere across the BBC, Radio 4 saw reach grow very slightly on the quarter, up 0.4%, but it’s down 5.1% on the year. Hours are down 0.6% on the quarter and 3.7% on the year. Brexit boredom? The data doesn’t say. (Today is down 0.4% on the quarter and down 3.9% on the year, while hours are up 2.3% on the quarter and down 3.9% on the year. But nor does the data indicate which presenters people like.) Will Eddie Mair’s departure for LBC, with Evan Davies replacing him make much difference to PM? Again it’s too early yet to say with Davis having only just started on the show.

Radio 3 got its Proms bump with reach up 1.4% to 1.9m (down 1.5% on the year). Hours were well up this quarter – up 10.3% on the quarter and up 13.7% on the year. I hate to disappoint Radio 3 listeners, but the jump looks a little too good to me, so expect some “correction” next quarter.

Five Live had quite a decent quarter. Most of the World Cup was over by the time data started being collected. Nonetheless, reach was up 6.3% on the quarter (down 0.7% on the year), while hours were up 11.7% on the quarter (down 0.3% on the year).

6 Music can’t claim to have broken any records this quarter! But with 2.5m listeners, it has its second highest ever reach, up 3.0% on the quarter and up 3.6% on the year. Hours were down 9.1% on the quarter, but up 5.3% on the year. Recall that Lauren Laverne is lined up to take over breakfast in January, but there’s still another final quarter of Shaun Keaveny before then.

Over at LBC, they have been busy trumpeting the arrival of Eddie Mair. They’re certainly spending in broadsheet newspapers promoting his new show which runs 4-6pm and goes head to head with his old slot in the second hour. Interestingly, away from radio, owners Global has bought no fewer than three different outdoor companies. Aside from going from zero to the joint largest outdoor company in the UK in only a couple of months, it does also mean that there might be a lot of inventory for cross promotion of other Global assets like its radio stations. Can we expect to see lots of LBC, Capital and Heart digital outdoors adverts? I wouldn’t be surprised.

Mair’s show didn’t start until September, so is not really measured in these figures (notice a theme?). Overall LBC was broadly flat – down 0.5% on the quarter in reach, but up 0.3% on the year with 2.1m listeners. Hours show a 1.4% increase on the quarter, but have fallen 9.6% on the year. They hover just over 20m a week.

Classic FM was broadly flat this quarter, up 0.6% in reach on the quarter but down 4.6% on the year. Meanwhile hours are up 0.4% on the quarter, but down 3.3% on the year.

Virgin Radio is obviously an interesting station to keep an eye on. We’ve not heard any more stories about presenters who might be joining Evans at the station. I think it’s safe to infer that Charlie Sloth (he of ARIAS stage invading infamy) isn’t heading there.

While we wait to see what plans owners News UK have in store for the station, reach has fallen 2.1% this quarter to 414,000. That’s a 25.5% decrease on the year. Hours meanwhile are down 9.4% on the quarter and down 13.9% on the year. However I think we can expect a massive marketing push once Evans arrives. As Private Eye has noted, newspapers like The Sun are already onside.

TalkSport has been busy buying up cricket rights to overseas England tours recently. Right now the station is the official rights holder for the tour of Sri Lanka, and they have more tours upcoming. Interestingly, the BBC’s TMS team has adopted something more akin to what TalkSport used to do when it didn’t have rights – doing unofficial quasi-commentaries “off-tube” (aka with TVs on silent). So we’ve had the Cricket Social which seems to actually be going down quite well.

But back to TalkSport. They had a decent quarter in reach terms, up 2.2% to 3.0m on the quarter (up 1.1% on the year). Hours aren’t quite as good, down 4.4% on the quarter and down 4.2% on the year, just dipping below 20m. Sister station TalkSport 2 bounces around much more because its listening is still very low. Reach was up 2.2% on the quarter but down 18.4% on the year, while hours are up 55.5% on the quarter and up 29.1% on the year.

TalkRadio is very similarly sized, but reach was up 10.1% on this quarter to 261,000 (up 2.0% on the year). Hours are up 24.3% on the quarter but down 7.6% on the year.

Absolute Radio had a mixed set of results, with it’s reach down 4.6% on the quarter (but only down 1.4% on the year). However hours were up 9.6% on the quarter, but down 6.2% on the year. Across the entire Absolute Radio Network, reach was up 2.4% on the quarter and 7.8% on the year to 4.9m – the highest number ever achieved by the brand.

Good news at Absolute 80s where it achieved a record of 1.8m – up 14.7% on the quarter and 15.0% on the year Hours were down 3.5% on the quarter, and up 6.3% on the year. And Absolute Radio 90s also achieved record figures with 913,000 listeners – up 11.1% on the quarter and up 20.8% on the year, with hours even more impressively up 12.4% on the quarter and 31.3% on the year. A reminder that 90s are fast becoming the new 80s.

Kiss fell back a little this quarter, down 3.2% on the quarter and down 2.0% on the year, while hours were down 2.5% on the quarter and down 18.2% on the year. But the whole Kiss Network achieved its best ever figures with a combined 5.8m listeners.

Magic was down a little in reach, down 2.2% on the quarter and down 2.8% on the year. But hours are nicely up, increasing 11.4% on the quarter and up 11.1% on the year. But across the entire Magic Network, it was another record for Bauer with 4.1m listeners.

It’s also worth mentioning Jazz FM which has recently been bought by Bauer. They’ve not quite been moved into Golden Square just yet, but they’ll be bringing 657,000 listeners with them (down 2.2% on the quarter, but up 15.3% on the year), with 2.7m hours (down 10.6% on the quarter but up 18.9% on the year).

Overall Bauer did well this quarter, with a combined 18.165m listeners – up 2.6% on last quarter and up 2.1% on last year. They have 159m hours, up 4.4% on the quarter and up 3.2% on the year.

Over in Leicester Square, Global Radio doesn’t show an enormous amount of change this quarter. They’re essentially flat in reach and hours with 23.668m reach and 207m hours. (Note they sell slightly more than this, since some of the brands they sell aren’t actually owned by them).

The Capital Network shows no real changes on the quarter, but there are some falls on the year. Reach is essentially flat, up 0.2% on the quarter, but it’s down 4.2% on the year. Meanwhile hours are also up 0.2% on the quarter, but they’re down 16.3% on the year. The broader Capital Brand (i.e. including Capital Xtra) is similarly flat to slightly up on the quarter but down on the year.

The Heart Network didn’t perform fantastically this quarter, down 2.1% in reach on the quarter and down 1.9% on the year. More concerningly, hours were down 6.4% on the quarter and down 4.7% on the year. The picture improves across the entire Heart Brand which includes Heart 80s.

Heart 80s had some good results this quarter, up 15.9% on quarter and up 25.0% on the year. Hours were down 9.6% on the quarter while still being up 12.1% on the year.

Radio X saw another decent set of numbers with reach and hours both continuing to climb. At the moment, it’s probably the most improving brand Global has (although Smooth’s doing fine too). Reach was up 2.3% on the quarter and 12.7% on the year, with a reach of 1.7m, while hours were up 8.8% on the quarter and up 36.5% on the year.

Meanwhile the Smooth Brand reached 5.8m with reach up 3.5% on the quarter and up 2.5% on the year, while hours grew 6.2% on the quarter and were up 0.8% on the year.

Finally a word about Jack FM, which has just announced a national version of the station, Jack Radio, that will be 100% female in output. Recall that their existing national station Union Jack, is 100% British artists. While they’re doing some interesting things, you can’t help but wonder about the branding. More than once I’ve had to explain that Union Jack isn’t some kind of Brexit-favouring right leaning station. And I’m not sure that “Jack” shouts female listeners to me. In their Oxford home TSA, Jack continues to beat Heart which is a strong result. Nationally, reach was down a little to 111,000 for Union Jack, while hours grew to 508,000.

Digital

Digital listening continues to grow, reaching 52.4% of all listening this quarter. 34.4m people listen on a digital platform each week – 71% of the population.

Internet listening has reached a record level this quarter, with 11.1m listeners. That’s up 3.9% on last quarter and up 11.7% on last year. Average time spent listening is also growing – up from 8.4 hours a week to 8.9 hours a week. I suspect, but cannot prove, that this is a combination of the growth of smart speakers (Amazon Alexa, Google Home) and cheaper and bigger data bundles on mobile.

15-24s

There were actually slightly more 15-24s listening to the radio this quarter than last! 6.5m, up 1.0% on the quarter (although down 1.6% on the year). Listening hours for this group remain a concern, down 1.7% on the quarter and down 5.8% on the year.

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 16 September 2018, 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.


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