…oh gawd, I just thought back there; I’ve worked for THREE [town]‘s fastest growing radio stations! /facepalm Where did I go wrong???

Of course, the worst period was when they were released at the really anti-social 6am. For me, that meant an early cab. A freezing wait in the pre-dawn outside RAJAR’s offices (the Q4 release is in late January, and 6am is no fun in January). Then a dash back to the office to prepare a press release by mid-morning.

The release times have jumped around quite a lot over the years. When I started in radio it was about 9.30am with a trip to RAJAR’s then offices down near Harrods in Knightsbridge.

I’m tired of people hopping up and down and getting all excited or depressed about a few thousand listeners here or there each quarter.

People get happy or sad about figures as small as 2000 listeners. Unless I’m mistaken – that’s within the number of people that just ONE RAJAR diary can represent…therefore, in my book, is pretty meaningless.

Not any more – stations now get the embargoed figures at 1.30pm on the Wednesday. Presumably because hardly any commercial radio companies are still listed on the stock exchange.

I agree with Adam re. stations using terms such as ‘Reach’ in their on-air promotions – to most listeners its meaningless. It makes far more sense to say “more people are listening” than “our reach has gone up”.