RAJAR Q3/2012 - the digital revolution begins

As the nights are beginning to draw in, and the Autumn fog returns, I'd like you to remember summer.

It was, if you remember, no ordinary summer - particularly for Londoners. The Olympic Games and Paralympic Games caused significant changes to the way we lived and worked.

Many people worked from home during the two weeks, or staggered their journeys. Cab drivers saw their figures down by 20-40%; store traffic in London fell, too, by 4.5% in central London. All of Ofcom, for example, worked from home during the two weeks. As I sat outside a Dean Street restaurant in the middle of the Olympics, my companion and I wondered aloud where everyone was. (He then went to do a radio programme about it.)

The Olympic Games caused significant changes to the way we consumed media, too. We were glued to the television, and the computer, and the tablet, and the iPhone. Indeed, sometimes we enjoyed the iPhone rather too much, and broke the TV commentary with the thing. The 24 channels of additional BBC Olympics coverage, the Jessica Ennis and Mo Farah excitement... what does all this mean to radio?

Today's the day we find out, as RAJAR - the body tasked with measuring all of radio listening - report on the July/August/September radio figures. Or do they? Look carefully at the latest figures, and you'll see "Q", "H" or even "Y" in the figures. Many stations report on half-yearly ('H') or even yearly ('Y') figures: smoothing out any bounces or short-term Olympics-related dips.

Hardly a surprise, then, when the highly experienced radio boss John Myers tweets sage advice: "A word to all those having a RAJAR moment today. Remember, the only figure that really matters is year on year. Not quarter on quarter!"

With that in mind, RAJAR is, once more, a tale of two platforms.

Radio listening overall continues to decrease. Total time spent listening is down 5% year-on-year; and the total amount of people listening is down by 500,000. There is no way around it: radio, overall, is slowly eroding. Half a million people have stopped listening on a weekly basis in twelve months. This should be a concern and a worry to the radio industry. But nobody appears to care, as far as I can tell. Perhaps I'm looking the wrong way. Perhaps there is some evidence of people wanting to stem the rot.

However...

Digital radio listening (on all digital platforms) continues to increase - up 6% year-on-year to 31%. DAB, once more, is the clear market leader, with almost two-thirds (65.2%) of all listening to radio on a digital platform. The internet continues to be a tiny proportion of radio listening. Importantly, the latest figures show internet is growing at the same rate as DAB, 7.6% (vs 7.7%) year-on-year.

So, if radio overall is shrinking, but digital radio is growing, it comes as no surprise that stations that really make the most of the medium are succeeding.

In spite of all radio being down, the Absolute Radio Network - the collection of stations under the Absolute Radio brand operated by TIML Radio - continue to show good increases year-on-year, adding 103,000 listeners. The BBC's digital stations also show good growth: BBC Asian Network, BBC Radio 4 Extra and BBC 6music posting record figures. talkSPORT, again benefitting from digital, has also posted record figures. Smooth 70s posts a strong debut figure of 749,000 listeners.

And, looking back to the Olympics, the BBC's 5 Live Olympics Extra radio station, a temporary service on digital for only two weeks, posted a total reach of 1.9 million listeners. The three Radio 5 Live stations, over the Olympics, posted 7.7 million listeners (significantly above the 6.3m it achieved across the whole quarter). Who said the Olympics would kill radio listening?

However, those stations that lumber on by ignoring the possibilities of digital - whether BBC Local Radio (which lost 500,000 listeners year-on-year), or XFM (which is significantly down year-on-year) - are not sharing in digital's success.

So - it's clear that radio has a multiplatform future, and that digital radio is a good thing for radio.

And it's becoming increasingly evident that radio needs digital - on whatever platform - for the medium to survive.

Over the past year, the author has worked for Absolute Radio, talkSPORT, the BBC, RAJAR and the Radioplayer. This is a personal opinion piece and does not reflect the views of any organisation.