“RAJAR day” was always very exciting. Every three months, the radio industry’s research figures, (Radio Joint Audience Research) were released at 11.00am with a sense of real excitement.

The figures were released (via fax, I presume) earlier in the day. The radio group’s research expert then had a few frantic hours poring through the figures to release the inevitable good news press release on the dot of 11.00am. “Best figures ever” was what everyone hoped for. “Smalltown FM achieves 20% increase in reach among 35-44 year-old women” was what we normally got, masking the fact that, overall, the station completely tanked. A huddled get-together for all staff just before 11.00am was the order of the day, followed by a self-congratulatory story in the 11.00am news bulletin. If the figures were exceptionally good, production would swing into action with a “thanks for keeping us the most listened-to radio station for men aged 25-34 in this area!” ballsy bit of audio, which would then be scheduled out of the news for the rest of the day.

For those in radio, how your competitors had done was sometimes rather a mystery (yes, you knew how they’d done in your area, but not overall), so telephone calls were made, and numbers traded. For those with a keen interest in the radio marketplace, the day was spent chatting to friends elsewhere in the industry, swapping notes and working out who was still in a job and who was out. Oh dear, I don’t fancy Pennine Radio’s figures much. Have you seen Radio Tees? Virgin Radio has just sacked their programme director again. That kind of thing.

Things have changed.

Most radio companies were in the stock market, so it was recognised that the business-critical nature of RAJAR figures could have quite an impact on stock market shares. So, the RAJAR figures are now released to the public, and the market, at 7.00am. They’re released to the industry after the close of the stock market the previous night; so there’s ample time to work out the most positive statement. (Or the most negative).

RAJAR figures are also available to everyone, at www.rajar.co.uk – where you can download the lot. Not just that, but websites such as Media UK ingest these figures into historical graphs, so you can see at a glance how stations are doing. No more horsetrading of figures, or waiting for the clever people to do them; it’s all there as soon as you get into the office.

Radio Today reprint the press releases from radio stations; Media Guardian does a little more analysis; but the rush to discuss figures has now, almost entirely, disappeared. There’s no longer the adrenaline rush. Which is probably good – a quarter’s bad figures does not necessarily mean that the entire radio station is broken.

So, if you wondered why very few people get excited about RAJAR-day these days: now you know.

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