{"id":22411,"date":"2022-02-03T00:00:03","date_gmt":"2022-02-03T00:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/?p=22411"},"modified":"2022-02-03T00:09:07","modified_gmt":"2022-02-03T00:09:07","slug":"rajar-q4-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/2022\/02\/rajar-q4-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"RAJAR Q4 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This post is brought to you in association with RALF<\/em> from DP Software and Services<\/em>. I\u2019ve used RALF for the many years, and it\u2019s my favourite RAJAR analysis tool. So I am delighted that I continue to be able to bring you this RAJAR analysis in association with RALF. For more details on the product, contact Deryck Pritchard via this link<\/a> or phone 07545 425677.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Methodological Note<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Welcome to another RAJAR day. As with the previous release<\/a>, the first since RAJAR was suspended during lockdown, RAJAR continues to work to slightly adjusted methodology. What this means is that you shouldn\u2019t really make direct comparisons with previous data beyond last quarter. Therefore, you\u2019ll only see Quarter on Quarter comparisons in this blog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s also worth remembering that RAJAR uses multiple quarters to provide listening data. While the larger national stations only need a single quarter\u2019s worth of data to get numbers, smaller stations either need six months of data, or even a year\u2019s worth of data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What that means practically is that for national stations, the measurement is broadly for late September to mid-December, while for big regional stations (and many groups), the data is from last summer through until December. Finally, the very smallest stations are still using some element of pre-pandemic data for their numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What all this means is that you can\u2019t instantly base this quarter\u2019s results on solely, say, October to December listening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With that out of the way, let\u2019s get into it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall Trends<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Radio continues to reach 89% of the population with 49.5m listeners each week. Indeed, you have to go to several decimal places to actually find a difference in listening between this quarter and last quarter overall!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Listening hours are slightly down, -0.8% on last quarter, but still with over 1 billion hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The BBC has seen a slight overall decrease of 0.3% in reach to 34.5m a week (62% of the adult population). Hours are down 2.6% to 501m hours. But that\u2019s still a small lead over commercial radio in terms of hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commercial Radio\u2019s reach fell 0.1% in the last quarter to 36.8m reach (66% of the population), but hours grew 1.1% to 482m hours. So commercial radio maintains its lead over the BBC in reach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps the key demo to keep an eye on is 15-24s which could be a bellwether for wider listening behaviours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amongst this group, 75% of the population listen each week rather than 89%. But while the overall radio listener consumes 20.3 hours of radio a week, this falls to 12.1 hours a week amongst 15\u201424s (although that figure is actually up from 11.5 hours a week last quarter).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And while both the BBC and commercial radio have seen small declines in reach amongst 15-24s, both have increased their hours. Either way, the BBC now reaches 43% of 15-24s while commercial radio reaches 61% of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One interesting thing to note is that 64% of radio listening is now through some kind of digital platform, with 36% being through \u201ctraditional\u201d AM\/FM listening. And that rises to 66% if you just consider 15-24s. And it even goes up to over two thirds (67%) if you look at 15-44s. So it\u2019s not the very <\/em>youngest adult listeners that are driving digital radio listening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, it\u2019s also worth having a look at overall listening trends through the weekday. While Omicron came along right at the end of the year and working from home was the official government advice just before Christmas, many people had started going back to work for the first time in many months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last time around I noted that although there remained a breakfast peak, listening through the day remained high suggesting a lot of listening was still at home. The pattern is not vastly different this quarter. When using average quarter hours across Monday-Friday, the All Radio peak time is still 0800-0815. But it\u2019s still remarkably high at 0900 and remains so right through until mid-morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n