The audience figures for on-demand radio

There's a gap in RAJAR's measurement that appears, to some commentators, to leave a bitter taste in the mouth. They've all pointed out that RAJAR doesn't monitor on-demand radio (formerly known as "listen-again"). They then point out: imagine how MASSIVE the BBC would appear if it did!

According to the BBC, their listen-again service for radio accounted, in June 2011, for 26% (page 15) of all requests for radio online (it’s not particularly clear, but this includes iPlayer, Radioplayer and connected devices like internet radio sets).

RAJAR does cover live internet radio, which accounts for 3.2% of all radio listening (Q2 2011). Looking as a proportion of the BBC’s audience, however, it’s lower: it only accounts for 2.6% of all BBC radio listening, so we'll use this as a base.

Let’s over-estimate the on-demand figures hugely by assuming that a ‘request’ for live radio will result in the same amount of listening as a ‘request’ for on-demand radio. This won’t be the case – many people listen for hours on a live stream, since it doesn’t finish – but it’ll keep our maths easy.

So, if 2.6% of listening to the BBC is to the internet, we can now add a massive 0.7% to that figure, leading to a huge figure of 3.3%.

Internet radio listening is tiny. On-demand radio listening is tinier still.

RAJAR doesn’t measure on-demand listening, true. Perhaps it ought to, since BARB does measure on-demand viewing, and parity is a good thing for broadcast measurement.

That said, the figures we’re talking are so small to make no difference.