Comments on: RAJAR exposes commercial radio's online opportunity

By: Mr. Hip Hop

Mr. Hip Hop — Tue, 19 May 2009 03:40:51 +0000

Maybe this younger audience is finally rebelling against terrible commercial radio now that music is so widely available now. RadioCentre might be the only saving grace for these consolidated commercial companies.

By: Tony

Tony — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 22:07:04 +0000

Of course what the ‘MIDAS’ press release is careful to omit is the fact that Rajar’s own figures show Internet as accounting for only 2.2% of total radio listening – a sixth of the DAB figure.

By: Steve Green

Steve Green — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 10:49:06 +0000

The 14.5m figure was actually from the MIDAS2 report in May 2008, and the 16.1m figure is from the current MIDAS3 survey, which was in October, so the number has grown 11% in 5 months – or a compound annual growth rate of about 28%.

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 23:50:40 +0000

It probably won’t surprise you to know James, that I believe UK commercial radio is still very ‘head in the sand’ about all digital developments, not just online. At the centre of the problem seems to be a pronounced belief that ‘more stations’ is the only necessary response to the digital world. And of course we’re talking ‘more stations’ that are for the most part automated, voicetracked, jukeboxes.

DAB and online can both deliver so much more than “100 different ways to program Selector”. Big brands like Absolute and Kiss could be providing much more content – both audio and secondary media – tied to their main broadcast stream.

On DAB, receivers are the principal barrier to this at the moment, they need to have a broadcaster customisable interface for each station on a full colour screen, much like the online ‘radio player’. But until the industry gets its act together and specifies this, the chances of any such receiver being produced are zero.

By: James Martin

James Martin — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 23:16:39 +0000

I think it would be of great interest to survey these online listeners regarding the actual geography of the services they listen to online.

For example; are they listening to a national service, a local service (and importantly, if so, is it local to them), an internet only service or a foreign station?

This would provide a whole new angle to the data for the various enterprises who provide online streams.

I realise there is some data already in the research detailing how many listeners used a station website to listen to BBC/commercial/foreign stations – but reckon there is more to learn in this area.

A local radio station then, for instance, could use this information to discover potentially how useful their streaming service is in supporting RAJAR results for their own TSA.