RAJAR Q2/2012

53% down at Smooth Radio in London, Absolute Radio’s Clive Dickens claims they now have 41% of digital listeners in London, which is close to their 50% target for the TSA.

I won’t go on about London because everyone else will be already all over it.

Atlantic FM to Heart Cornwall has held the audience throughout the switch, but Pirate FM are still cleaning up with a bloody impressive 34% reach.

Orion have merged 96.4 and 97.2, so annoyingly, we can’t compare like with like. Capital FM Birmingham, however, have added 39,000 listeners, with little change at Heart. As I mentioned earlier, in Coventry they’re down 15,000 pairs of ears.

Big shock at Smooth though. This may give early indications as to what Global will do with the Smooth frequencies. Alternatively, we could be over-thinking the situation. What I do know is Richard Park won’t be having any of that.

Atlantic FM to Heart Cornwall has actually shown quite a nice increase quarter-on-quarter: but caution, since this station uses a 12-month rolling survey and therefore will still have Atlantic numbers for some time to come.

In terms of Free Radio, Orion’s press release said:

Free Radio FM launches with over 700,000 listeners and 5.6m listening hours across its West Midlands TSA*, with a market share of 7.4%, up by a tenth year-on-year. Phil Riley says – “Given our marketing campaign only began in the final seven weeks of this 25 week survey, we are confident in our strategy; as suggested by audience loyalty (time spent listening) rising to its highest figure since our West Midlands FM figures were first published two years ago. Our total listening has also climbed by 8% in the year.”

Smooth Radio’s hours are up and all reach figures are being affected by the increase in population in this RAJAR survey. London, once more, looks like it has different issues.

What it shows again is that Smooth performs well in TSA’s which don’t have similar sounding competition. The extraordinary share in the NW is down to Real’s lack of focus, still stealing from Peter to feed Paul.

London normally bobs up and down every quarter, but this is a big dip in comparison which is concerning, although that may change once Global can manage the station directly.

Very true. Once Heart North West arrives, the picture could change quite a bit.

I’ve done my platform analysis here and you’ll also spot in our news section other links to Paul Easton, Adam Bowie and Matt Deegan’s analysis.

James, yes, it is up 2,000 on the quarter, but down 3,000 on Atlantic a year ago, and that maybe because they decided to give Victoria Leigh the Drivetime slot on Heart Cornwall. I know that Heart have at least one news team member based at St Agnes now, whereas previously it was just the Sales team. I do wonder if they are thinking about giving Heart Cornwall a separate Breakfast Show, and running it as a separate operation from Heart Devon. If they do, then I think that can only be a positive.

Heart Devon also saw a slight rise in reach, but both Cornwall and Devon saw bigger increases in average hours and total hours. Pirate FM also saw an increase in reach, but saw a decrease in average hours and share.

Palm FM saw a decrease all round, but not quite as bad as Radio Exe. Their first figures after their rebrand are very troubling. Reach down 3,000 to 25,000 and share down from 2.6% to 2.4%. I know this is the first book after the rebrand, but their figures are based on a year’s worth of data, and to see this kind of drop in a quarter, is very troubling.

James Martin:

Orion have merged 96.4 and 97.2, so annoyingly, we can’t compare like with like. Capital FM Birmingham, however, have added 39,000 listeners

It’s not ideal but the nearest to a like with like comparison is to look at their figures within Capital Birmingham’s TSA. This quarter Free has added 51,000 listeners. Year on year, Free has added 6,000 (compared to BRMB in Q1/11) while Capital is no change.

Rugby’s rise is possibly explained after 15,000 people say “no” to Mercia being replaced by Free Radio in Coventry

In Rugby FM’s TSA Free/Mercia is actually down just 500,000 year on year – and static compared to last quarter. In Touch Coventry’s TSA Free/Mercia has lost 12,900 QonQ and 13,400 YonY.

Our new ‘owners’ pages allow us to do RAJAR figures, I realised excitedly in the shower this morning. And they’re quite revealing.

The BBC shows an inexorable increase in audience.

I’d like to be in Absolute Radio’s shoes; or Town & Country which has a lovely graph.

Global Radio is interesting since it shows a drop in individual hours listened; Real and Smooth doesn’t show any evidence of Smooth London’s collapse; Lincs FM looks pretty good and consistent; and look at Bauer hours per listener to see radio’s demographic shift. Finally, there’s also UTV and Orion.

I think that’s the big groups done; but if I’ve forgotten any, please do let me know and I’ll get the system to produce those, too.

UKRD would be an interesting one.