Following a tiny del.icio.us posting, in which I accused Frukt of ‘talking crap’, I got an email from a man called Steve who’s their Head of PR. It reads:

Hi James,

Saw that you picked up on the (rather harsh) Register article regarding FRUKT’s radio stats.

We hold our hands up on this and admit that the press release was far too sensationally phrased. As a result, we got a bit of a smackdown – fair enough.

By way of defence, however, just wanted to point out that there were some interesting and valid new findings in there:

We do stand by the fact that, according to our study of 904 UK consumers a surprisingly low number of 13-15 year olds (22%) are enthused enough to tune into traditional music radio over FM or DAB on a daily basis.

Obviously RAJAR is the gold standard for the radio industry, however, there are some fundamental differences in what they measure relative to our stats.

1) They cover adults aged 15+. Our study looked at this age group but also younger demographics that RAJAR doesn’t cover. While amongst all of our age groups 16+, more or less 50% listened to traditional music radio (FM or DAB) daily, the big difference we were pointing out was with the younger demographic, aged 13-15, where 22% listened daily (from a sizeable sample – 248 13-15s)

Our claims about the difficulty in reaching young people via radio have also been backed up anecdotally at least: A source from the Radio Academy told us off the record that commercial radio’s single biggest problem is that it cannot attract young listeners (i.e. the listeners of tomorrow). The source also said that most radio stations have singularly failed to make radio appealing to young listeners and as a result most are very worried about its future.

And there was some very positive stuff in there from Tim Grimsditch, Director of Strategy, FRUKT, “…the role of the radio DJ seems as relevant as ever. With 30,000+ new releases in the UK last year, and a world of music available on the Internet, we need DJ’s more than ever to help us navigate through music. Beyond their traditional role as music selectors, consumers will always want personalities to help tie programming together – you only have to look at Capital Radio’s lurching stock price and audience share when Chris Tarrant left the morning show for proof.”

Also, a recent interview with Radio 1 controller Andy Parfitt on the difficulty of reaching 12-16 year olds via radio can be found here.

And, finally, the article claims FRUKT are a “New Media” agency. We’re not. We are a music-centric marketing agency seeking to help the media industry (new and old) develop their models and build new business around music, for the benefit of creators and investing companies alike. We’re not just flogging new technology but genuinely care about and value music.

This is why we conducted the consumer research in the first place – to understand, in real terms, how UK consumers of varying ages are actually using technology and consuming music.

I’m meeting up with The Register this evening to chat about this and further stats we’re releasing in future.

I’d also be happy to keep you informed with future press releases etc.

Let me know if this would be of interest.

Best,

Steve.

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Here’s my reply.

Hi, Steve. You send this long and interesting reply, then disclaim it at the bottom to say that I can’t reprint it in my blog, which I assume was the point of your email. My clearly published terms and conditions of receipt of unsolicited email give you no guarantee of confidentiality anyway, so I’ll post your reply. And this reply back again.

Obviously RAJAR is the gold standard for the radio industry, however, there are some fundamental differences in what they measure relative to our stats.

RAJAR – either a ‘gold’ standard, or something that relies on brand recall and mostly writing from memory in a scruffy paper diary. It’s not great – though it’s the best we have, admittedly. But young (10-20) listeners have NEVER been big radio listeners. The ‘dip’ in listening in this age-group is similar in the 1980s, 1990s and now.

They cover adults aged 15+. Our study looked at this age group but also younger demographics that RAJAR doesn’t cover.

RAJAR does cover children – over 5,000 children aged 4-14 ever year (five times larger than your apparent survey).

Our claims about the difficulty in reaching young people via radio have also been backed up anecdotally at least: A source from the Radio Academy told us off the record that commercial radio’s single biggest problem is that it cannot attract young listeners (i.e. the listeners of tomorrow). The source also said that most radio stations have singularly failed to make radio appealing to young listeners and as a result most are very worried about its future.

Whatever Tre – your source – says to you regarding young listeners for commercial radio (a sector which has been particularly affected by a poor ad market and a strong BBC), the truth is that MySpace gets something like 20 minutes use per week for young listeners, while Galaxy stations get something like 7 hours a week. I’m sure he’s not confusing a healthy non-complacency – of course radio is worried – with agreeing with your figures.

And there was some very positive stuff in there from Tim Grimsditch, Director of Strategy, FRUKT, “… consumers will always want personalities to help tie programming together – you only have to look at Capital Radio’s lurching stock price and audience share when Chris Tarrant left the morning show for proof.”

Blimey, if that’s positive, I’d hate to see negative. But your Tim Grimsditch is confusing share price (a measure of the city’s confidence in management) with audience figures. Poor management and a badly-executed botch of a merger (both now fixed) has virtually nothing to do with what comes out of the speakers. The fact that Chris Tarrant was nearly 60 when he left Capital Radio (out of touch with London’s thirty-somethings, let alone kids), and that Capital itself had become complacent and out of touch with its area is worthy of note, but irrelevant when talking about ‘young people’.

We are a music-centric marketing agency seeking to help the media industry (new and old) develop their models and build new business around music, for the benefit of creators and investing companies alike.

From my viewpoint – the record industry is currently being advised to:
1. Work out how it can sue and punish its most passionate consumers
2. Discover how it can screw more out of the industry that promotes new music most effectively (that’s radio, incidentally)
3. Find out how it can put those inconvenient internet broadcasters out of business by charging unrealistic charges which make ad-funded broadcasting impossible
4. Disenfranchise the people that actually buy its products by smothering them in badly-executed digital rights management to ensure they cannot even use their legally purchased products in a legal way.

Yes, radio has issues attracting young people. I posted about it a while ago.

But, blimey, the record companies need to sanity-check their advice carefully.

(In my humble, personal, oh-so-personal, opinion).

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