Radio audience figures: the difference between hours and reach

The difference between ‘hours’ and ‘reach’ is sometimes confusing. So, to help: the below are both facts in the Isle of Man:

• 56% of people listen to Manx Radio every week.
• 30.7% of all radio listening is to Manx Radio every week.

It is accurate to claim that 56% of people listen to Manx Radio every week: even if some of those people only listen for 15 minutes. This figure is called the ‘reach‘ (in the US, the ‘cume’). It is also accurate to claim that Manx Radio has 30.7% of all radio listening (in their transmission area). This figure is worked out from the ‘hours‘ (in the US, the ‘TimeSpentListening’) for the station, compared to all hours spent listening to the radio.

In the UK, 20.4 million adults listen to radio on a digital platform every week*. Of the 49m adults* in the UK, that’s 41.6%. (19% of the population are below 16*, but RAJAR looks at 15+ as adults.) So it’s therefore accurate to claim that 40% of radio listeners listen to digital radio each week here in the UK. And we know how it splits, too – internet is 2.8%, digital TV is 4.5%, and DAB is 15.4%*.

It’s not accurate to claim that “40% of all your listeners this morning … are listening on a DAB radio”, which Ford Ennals claimed this morning on BBC Radio 4. The pressures of live radio are great: and he corrected the statement later in the interview.

It is accurate to claim, as he did later, that “40% of radio listeners are listening to digital”. They do, every single week. As he said, “That’s over 20 million people every week listening to digital.”

That doesn’t necessarily mean “40% of your listeners” (BBC Radio 4 listeners) are listening to digital – though given their better-than-average digital share, this is probably the case, but I haven’t got the information in front of me. It also certainly doesn’t mean that the Today programme has 40% of listeners on DAB, that’s clearly wrong. It’s unfortunate that the stress of live radio meant that Ford gave an incorrect statement in the interview (though I certainly can’t quite see it as a “lie”). But the facts are that 40% of radio listeners are listening to digital. Every single week.

Grant Goddard, an independent media analyst, is writing to complain to the BBC, complaining about the 40% statement and claiming “it [the 40% statement] is wholly untrue. The radio industry’s audience data (produced by RAJAR, published by Ofcom for Q1 2010) show that 27% of listening to Radio 4 is via all digital platforms, which include digital television, the internet … and DAB.”

Broadcast radio is part of radio’s multi-platform future (as is IP): and, to my mind, both FM and DAB have their own benefits. But it’s unfortunate that an independent media analyst is claiming that “Ford Ennals’ untruthful statement is only the latest in a long line of disinformation perpetuated by commercial forces that will gain financially from DAB take-up, and which are designed to mislead the public” – pretty strong stuff – while simultaneously confusing ‘hours’ and ‘reach’. Surely these concepts are the very basics of radio analysis?

Later:

Digital Radio UK has sent a statement to RadioToday which reads:

The Today Programme has accepted our clarification which is as follows; that 40% of people do listen to Radio 4 on digital radio and that this did not refer to the Today programme specifically. We should have made it absolutely clear that we were talking about digital radio, not DAB. During the interview, however, it was made clear that DAB is just one of the digital platforms.

RAJAR data for Q3 2010 shows that the weekly reach for Radio 4 was 10,368,000 adults and the weekly listening reach for Radio 4 on digital platforms was 4,004,000 adults which is 39% (it was 40% in Q2 2010).

DAB is the largest element of Radio 4 digital listening with a weekly reach of 3,272,000 adults which is equivalent to 32% of total weekly reach of Radio 4 or 82% of total digital platform reach.

We think that it is interesting and relevant to the debate about digital radio that such a high proportion of Radio 4 listeners listen at some time during the week on digital.