People listen to radio in lots of ways. Official.
Posted on Friday, August 24th, 2007 at 12:21am. #
Photo by “Dusk Rude Boy” at Flickr
RAJAR, the organisation that produces the UK’s radio audience figures, did something pretty good this time round: asked people on which platform they listened. We’ve learnt a whole lot about how people listen to the radio as a result.
I discover this evening that Virgin Radio’s figure for digital listening is a new high – “my” last figures, and, as outgoing Digital Media Director (with a partial mandate to get more listeners to more platforms), I feel pleased about that. Can’t quote the figures, because RAJAR rules tell me not to, though I suspect Virgin will probably go public with those figures soon enough. (You’re allowed to mention your own figures – but not other broadcasters; and since this is not an official blog from my employer, I can’t quote any figures). Someone at Virgin quoted them to me, by the way – I have less access to the full figures than you’d think.
What’s also interesting is the breakdown, per platform, of radio stations. Thanks to someone else, I can quote that the most popular radio station in London on the internet is “Any other station”, the RAJAR catch-all that incorporates all non-RAJAR stations: everything from last.fm to Pandora to any number of other internet stations. You should know that ‘listen-again’ stuff isn’t included, so the large amount of listening via the BBC’s Radio Player doesn’t appear on RAJAR; but even so, that’s an interesting figure, pointing to a potential threat by internet radio to the established radio broadcasters. However, internet radio accounts 1.9% of all radio listening in the UK. It’s not that much of a threat – DAB and DTV beats the internet hands-down. As I’ve said; internet radio listening is not as large as you might think.
Probably more concerning is that 21% of people had no bloody idea how they were listening, and this figure, for some stations, increases to over 60%. There’s one station which is DAB-only that gets a 30% “dunno what platform” score; another similar station, which mentions “DAB Digital Radio” every link, gets a similarly concerningly high figure. This is a worry, since the margin of error is unacceptably high for these stations; but a pleasant confirmation of the truth that nobody cares about technology, all they care about is content, which I think I’ve banged on about here often enough.
Finally, from the ‘all platforms’ survey (which we -can- quote from, and which you’ll find on www.mediauk.com in the radio directory), I learn that not only have Virgin Radio’s figures increased, but that Virgin’s digital-only stations have all posted record figures. Given my involvement in the stations over this survey period, I’m delighted about this; I believe that my old team worked hard at ensuring that we promoted these stations hard and to the benefit of the main brand, and I’m delighted that we delivered on that promise. To see the full rosy picture, visit any Virgin station at www.mediauk.com/radio/starting-with/v and hit the audience figures link. Well done, chaps.
–Later–
You should read Matt Deegan’s post on this subject too, for more interesting information.
