James Cridland

RAJAR Q3/24, goodbyes and media laws

Me! And Ken Bruce!

Above: “make sure when you meet Ken Bruce that you don’t make the selfie look as if you were in a gale”. Sigh.

Q3 2024 RAJAR figures are out for the UK. Listening to radio online actually fell for the quarter (27.7% of all radio listening, compared to 28.1% last time around). Listening to radio via DAB continued to increase, and is now at 44% of all radio listening, another record. FM/AM now accounts for 25.7% - down from 29.7% one year ago.

RAJAR appears to be a tale of two industries when it comes to platform share: while online now accounts for almost a third of all radio listening for commercial radio (32.8%); the BBC’s online figure has dropped Q-on-Q to just 21.1%, says RAJAR.

The accompanying BBC Sounds statistics pack shows a drop in weekly audience from 4.88mn to 4.7mn: a slump of -3.7%. It would be churlish to point out that consumption of BBC podcasts via open RSS, outside the BBC Sounds lock-in, has increased by 2%. It’s almost as if exclusivity isn’t right for public service broadcasters.

Over at Bauer, notable that the Absolute Radio brand has posted its best-ever figures, in spite of now being a digital-only network, losing both 1215 (Jan 2023) and 105.8FM (May 2021).

RCS

  • Johnnie Walker did his final broadcast on BBC Radio 2: here are his final moments on-air after 58 years on British radio. Allowing people to say good-bye is a splendid thing.

  • Media laws have changed in the UK, and almost immediately, Bauer have decided to remove the regional radio shows that had to exist on Greatest Hits Radio. (They were the second-highest rating show on the stations, but the cost savings will be more attractive to Bauer than a slight dip in audience level).

  • Bauer’s also closing its buildings in Bristol and Norwich, and St John’s Beacon in Liverpool - slightly cynically, it’ll still lease the signage that is visible across the city, but not actually use the building otherwise. With the closure of the local programming for Greatest Hits Radio, the company says “Hits Radio Liverpool Breakfast will continue to broadcast from the city”, though curious as to quite where.

  • Australian radio is working on ensuring prominence for licensed radio on smart speakers, copying the great work done in the UK. Here’s some excellent analysis from Steve Ahern.

  • The Kyle and Jackie O saga took a new, unexpected, twist: Jackie O revealing that she suffered from drug addiction in 2022, and took time away from the show at the time. Kyle was apparently unaware. She’s got a book out, coincidentally.

  • This YouTube clip is about AM radio in the US, and how it’s “seeking a lifeline”. If you’re outside the US, you might be unable to watch, since CBS sells CBS Saturday Morning to other broadcasters. If you can’t see it, under US copyright’s fair use rules, enjoy this seven-minute clip.

Thank you to Wade Kingsley, The Creative Coach, for becoming this newsletter’s latest supporter. Part of the Melbourne Radio Wars podcast, we got him speaking at the last Next Radio. He’s a top man, and I’m grateful for his support!

If you need to sleep, here is my trip report about my recent Nordic tour, with lots of pictures of pretty Oslo and Stockholm, and nothing to do with the radio at all.

Want to supercharge your radio show? Here’s a £1 week-long trial of Show Prep - from a world class radio consultant and the best show-prep writer in the UK. Great for UK stations, or for English-language stations everywhere, too.* (ad)

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