For the non-UK people reading this, RAJAR is the industry-owned radio ratings organisation for the UK. "Hours" is our way of saying "TSL" - Time Spent Listening; "Reach" is the way we talk about cume, the total amount of listeners a station has. A "TSA" is the marketing measurement area of a radio station. We pronounce the word "tomato" correctly over here too, and we know how to make a good cup of tea.
What does RAJAR do?
Lynsday Ferrigan kicks off the evening, by explaining what RAJAR does. (Paul Kennedy has written an article on Media UK with more info). There are 303 stations on the survey - the smallest covers 52,000 people, and RAJAR uses a sample of 500 diaries to cover this size of station. (Diaries are both paper and online).
In total, RAJAR survey 105,000 adults a year - it's not a panel, it's a rolling survey with new people every week. Lots of hard work to get this right. If you work in radio, or you're a journalist, you're not able to take part - and, interestingly, if you're a neighbour of someone taking part, you can't take part either: apparently neighbours talk to one another and influence each other. (Clearly outside of London people actually talk to one another. Goodness.)
RAJAR measures what station you listen to, how you listen, when you listen and where you listen. Initially, you get shown a set of cards with station names on them, to work out which you listen to: and those then get stuck into your diary. Digital stations - for some reason - are coloured differently to analogue ones; this seems a bit daft if you ask me, particularly since everyone in the UK can pick up digital radio on at least one platform.
We discover that RAJAR is testing a smartphone app which monitors real-time radio listening. Apparently "it will complement" the diary work. The app is on test in London and uses an audio watermark. Nobody asked how it works with mobile apps; how it copes with listening in the shower (do you take your phone in with you?); how it deals with listening at work on headphones.
@jamescridland well that is encouraging. Didn't mention that to me last time I shouted at them!
— Phil Riley (@rileyorionradio) March 11, 2013
The hidden data in RAJAR
Then, John Shorter speaks, from research company Hallett Arendt. This was a fascinating presentation. He shows the 'hidden' data from RAJAR - stuff which is there, but which you need to do significant research to find (and what the company's software helps with).
Among his gems: people are listening to more radio stations. 27% of listeners only listen to one station - that figure was 33% five years ago. The average number radio stations we listen to in a week, John says, is about 4. That's a staggering figure. As an aside, he mentions that BBC Local Radio has much more loyalty than (local) FM commercial stations. When questioned later, John attributes this to three things - it's easier to switch between stations (particularly DAB sets); there's more choice on the radio dial; and station branding is clearer so people know what the stations stand for.
@jamescridland More like searching for something worth listening to.
— Terry Dowland (@TerryDowland) March 11, 2013
@jamescridland IF they're 4 commercial stations then, as they now all sound the same, people probably don't notice #radiobland
— Titus Jennings (@TitusRadio) March 11, 2013
@jamescridland @michaelhortin Can't bear the adverts on commercial stations, and I like the BBC's consistency of style nationwide.
— Katherine Birkett (@Kitty_B_Good) March 11, 2013
@jamescridland More content to relate to I guess? Lots of phone in opportunities.
— Sam Martin (@samUK) March 11, 2013
@jamescridland Older listeners more loyal perhaps?
— Paul Easton (@PaulEaston) March 11, 2013
John shows some more complex graphs, which look at one radio station and shows who else their listeners are listening to. This is really interesting stuff - much more than the standard quarter-hour graph that you'd get from RAJAR's top lines.
Future trends from RAJAR
Then we heard from Absolute Radio's Adam Bowie, who's an entertaining speaker. He points out that the amount of people tuning into radio is unchanged since 1999 (that's good news), and time spent listening to radio in that time is down slightly from about 25 to around 22 hours a week. Radio's in good health, he argues.
@jamescridland 10% is slightly?
— Geoff Lloyd (@GeoffLloyd) March 11, 2013
However, he points out that the amount of hours that 15-24's listen to the radio is decreasing; and there is now evidence from RAJAR that this generation's radio listening doesn't recover as they grow older. This is a cause for concern.
He shows some trend lines - BBC Radio 2, which looks as if it'll significantly grow ("Oh, Christ!", Adam says, as it draws itself on the screen).
Adam's also done some interesting work around AM radio. AM music radio shows a decline, kind of - it's a bit up and down - while AM speech continues to be relatively strong. However, he also argues, with another graph, that if you're a listener to an AM station, you've probably already made the switch to digital.
In terms of digital radio: 54% of listeners now enjoy digital radio, in some form, every week. Digital radio listening share might hit 50% by Q3 2018 if you do a simple trend line from where we are, though Adam says you'd be foolish to do so; and he points to the growth in internet radio and says that this may be where significant growth happens. Absolute Radio is getting all-time high figures almost every week, he says.
@jamescridland If the trajectory that we've been drifting through for years remains constant. More of a push could surely push it upwards?
— James Hamilton (@jamesrhamilton) March 11, 2013
A fascinating stat - 9% of people have gone COMPLETELY digital, and never listen to AM/FM any more, according to RAJAR. That's me - and many others following my Twitter feed, it seems.
“@jamescridland: 9% of people have now gone COMPLETELY digital, and never listen to AM/FM. Fascinating.#rajar” <that’s me, that is!
— John Collins (@johnco) March 11, 2013
Adam also points out a marked decline in breakfast radio listening over the past couple of years. This was an interesting graph to see - particularly since he was unable to give a good reason (other than "They're all watching Daybreak", which I'm guessing was rather sarcastic).
Adam points out the differences between internet and diary-based research for audio (which is also an article on the RAJAR website). But he also says that advertising agencies don't actually want live research data for radio - there's not enough money in it, he says, to warrant the hard work of data consumption. Looks like we'll be stuck with quarterly figures for some time to come, then.
@jamescridland agree, but it would be fascinating if it were in place. Would encourage more one off programming from stations I reckon.
— Mike Wood (@myclwd) March 11, 2013
To the questions: Lyndsay confirms that RAJAR does measure internet radio stations (and, indeed, any other radio station that's not named). "Other listening", which reflects this figure, remains relatively steady at around 4% of total listening.
@jamescridland If I launch a radio station called "Other", will I get a 4% share to start with?
— Graham Mack (@GrahamMack) March 11, 2013
@jamescridland sad really. Forms about 60% of my listening.
— Chris Fry (@cjf169) March 11, 2013
A question about the margin of error for RAJAR wasn't answered in absolute terms, but John points out that the 'reach' figures are significantly more accurate than the 'hours' figures: since you can be careful who gets the diaries, but you can't know in advance whether people are heavy or light listeners. Adam adds that looking at the long-term trend is much better than quarter-on-quarter, or even year-on-year.
A question about where RAJAR places its diaries. "Is it true that many of them are placed in overlap areas," asks one person - presumably to cut down on RAJAR's costs, since a diary placed in the TSA of both Capital FM and Heart Essex would count as a sample point in two areas. Lyndsay defers the answer to Adam, who doesn't give a particularly clear or convincing answer.
Finally, to the future. Adam says that radio will continue going digital; he says that there's unlikely to be major change, but he is concerned about 15-24s. John says that the 15-24 dip should be a concern to the whole industry.
@jamescridland Re: drop in 15-24's. Comm radio should have been addressing this a decade ago. Doing nothing to engage future listeners.
— Tim Gough (@Tim_Gough) March 11, 2013
@jamescridland I fear it's a case of shutting the stable door long after the horse has bolted.
— Tim Gough (@Tim_Gough) March 11, 2013
@jamescridland is there an industry initiative for this demo? Radio can't wait around for them to come back...
— Richard Phelps (@richardphelps) March 11, 2013
So, what do I think?
My opinion is that RAJAR does a pretty good job - there are too many unanswered questions about PPMs and electronic measurement, to my mind, to make it a suitable replacement for the diary system. Nobody has yet to come up with a better, cost-effective, method of measuring radio listening.
However, online measurement - which is a full census-based server-log system - offers significant benefits to radio broadcasters. This area has no globally-agreed methodology: opinion differs as to what a 'listener' really is (France thinks someone who's tuned in for more than 15 seconds; the US thinks it's 60 seconds), and there's differences of opinions around reconnections and what we actually measure.
As we move into a world where we may sell advertising separately online, it's important to properly measure audiences to a standard, global, methodology. Triton Digital's set of webcast metrics tools appear to do the job - to a methodology that most people agree with (Triton are a client of mine); but irrespective of the company that works them out, it's vital that we settle on a global methodology of internet radio listening.
More reading
Adam's slides are here.
Media UK contains full RAJAR figures and trends for all stations.
How many different radio stations do we listen to? We researched that.
Follow @LyndsayFerrigan Follow @JohnAShorter Follow @adambowie
One wonders whether a rise in unemployment (and people on part-time hours rather than a 9-5, or self employed people) due to the economic situation is partly responsible for this. People aren’t awake, and/or have no reason to listen to the breakfast show if they’re out of work or starting at 2pm.
Incidentally, this could be a push for radio stations to stop assuming that we all work a 9-5 Mon-Fri schedule (says the man who works such a schedule!). There does seem to be an outdated perception that we all spend our entire week counting down to “the weekend,” and then spend the entirety of said weekend in a disco listening to dance tunes! You start to wonder if it’s still 1993 in some studios.