The biggest radio market in the UK is now incredibly closely contested and one look at the all important half-hour shares demonstrates that any of six radio brands could grab the 15+ share lead. Overall there is just seven tenths of a percent between the top five commercial radio brands in London, with Heart at 5.3%, Magic at 5.1%, Absolute Radio at 4.9%, Kiss at 4.7% and Capital at 4.6%.
It was a different picture just six months ago, with Capital clearly ahead as memory of Johnny Vaughan’s final quarter commanded a share of over 8% at 8am, whereas Dave and Lisa now manage just over 6% at the same point and the pack, led by Christian O’Connell is closing in. As we can see from the graph though, Capital deserves congratulations for a strong performance on the school run home, still managing to take the lead between 3 and 4pm even though the station is only 5th in the market overall.
Despite Capital’s am and pm peaks, it is Heart and Magic that demonstrate the power of longer hours with strong daytime performances winning them the top two places in the market including a lead for the Bauer brand across the mid-morning daypart.
Things change fairly dramatically at 4pm, with the Absolute Radio brand the first to pull clear of the pack with a clear market lead across the end of daytime, through pm drive and into early evening in what was a strong quarter for Geoff Lloyd topped off by a stellar performance by Ian Wright and the Rock n Roll Football team’s FM and digital coverage of Euro 2012. If you slice the brand into single stations, Absolute Radio itself also leads the market in the second half of Hometime.
Following on from our lead is a powerful performance from Heart 106.2 across mid-evening, with share scores around double what we normally see for the station in this daypart. This is the only daypart the market leader tops and it will be interesting to see if they can hold onto this post 8pm advantage. It is also worth looking what effect it has on Heart’s position in London if their edge across evenings turns out to be either a reaction against the live football commentary carried on three stations in this period, or merely a reporting anomaly.
Kiss rounds out the day with a typically healthy score for its later evening programming.
It is always worth keeping Talk Sport in the picture despite such a surprisingly low key performance in a quarter which included the climax of the Barclays Premier League and Euro 2012 as the station switching to all-sport. London is not their heartland however and they’re sure to be hoping for a comeback after slipping below the significant 3m reach and 20m hours markers.
This slide shows the London market across all adult males and it’s clear to see how Heart, Magic, Kiss and Capital’s share is largely female based. The Absolute Radio brand meanwhile takes a clear lead, heading the London market from 10am to 10pm and peaking mid-afternoon with more than twice the share of any of our competitors. Whilst our digital radio services play a strong part in this success, Absolute Radio as an individual station heads the pack from 2pm to 9pm.
The closeness of the market overall is the story of the quarter though, with so little separating five brands from three groups, the commercial top spot in London is within reach of any of them. Compound that with the disruptive effect of London 2012 and a new Radio 1 breakfast show, the next RAJAR should be intriguing.