{"id":3963,"date":"2014-10-23T00:15:23","date_gmt":"2014-10-22T23:15:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/?p=3963"},"modified":"2014-10-23T09:18:24","modified_gmt":"2014-10-23T08:18:24","slug":"rajar-q3-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/2014\/10\/rajar-q3-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"RAJAR Q3 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"RAJAR<\/a><\/p>\n

This post is brought to you in association with RALF<\/em> from DP Software and Services<\/em>. I’ve used RALF for the past 6 years, and it’s my favourite RAJAR analysis tool. So I’m delighted to be able to bring you this analysis. For more details on RALF, contact Deryck Pritchard via this link<\/A> or phone 07545 425677.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another RAJAR and I’m still here having a look! And as ever, these are my personal views.<\/p>\n

Now it should be said that this is the RAJAR that covers the summer, and so we do see some falls over that period. <\/p>\n

First things first though, and for the second quarter in a row, Radio 2 has taken a bit of a tumble, now only just peeking over 15m listeners. The hours decline is a little more serious, down 4% on the quarter. But this is probably good news for just about every other radio station in the land. But overall, radio fell a little across the land, down 1% in reach (and flat in hours) – the same for both BBC and commercial radio. And to be fair to the station, they’re up fractionally on the previous year in reach.<\/p>\n

Radio 1 was down 2% in reach and up a fraction in hours, while Radio 3 saw its usual Proms improvement, gaining a little in reach but up 5% in hours. Radio 4 was fairly flat, but Five Live had a disappointing quarter down 7% in reach and 8% in hours. Although this quarter included a chunk of the World Cup, an ignominious England performance probably didn’t help.<\/p>\n

Indeed Talksport didn’t fare a great deal better shedding 7% in reach, although just down 2% in hours. <\/p>\n

Elsewhere Classic FM was also down in reach (-4%) but flat in hours. <\/p>\n

Absolute Radio had a rather decent RAJAR, up 4% in reach and 17% in hours. While across the whole Absolute Radio Network they got over 4m for the first time since the heyday of Chris Evans on Virgin Radio back in 2000. And a 10% jump in hours is pretty decent too.<\/p>\n

Digital stations have done rather well this quarter with various records being set. 6 Music has another<\/em> all time highest reach and hours figures. It’s just 6,000 listeners short of 2 million. And with over 18m hours, that means their listeners are incredibly loyal listening for 9.2 hours a week – only a couple of hours off what Radio 4 achieves with its loyal audience.<\/p>\n

Absolute 80s also achieved record figures (contributing to that Network number) – with over 1.4m listening each week, up 15% on the quarter. 1 Xtra had more listening hours than ever before – up 21%, and Heat had record figures.<\/p>\n

And spare a thought for The Hits – soon to be reappear as “3” branded services locally. It was up 22% in reach and, er, 71% in hours (OK, its figures yo-yo a bit).<\/p>\n

At breakfast, Nick Grimshaw was down a little on the quarter, but up on the year – 4% in reach and 10% in hours (Oh, and his audience’s average age has gone up fractionally to 33.7. As I’ve mentioned previously<\/a>, this will be impossible to get down). Meanwhile Chris Evans had a shocker! OK – he was down, but given the scale of the audience that isn’t so terrible. Down 6% on the quarter, and 0.5% on the year in terms of reach.<\/p>\n

In London, it’s not been a great quarter for Global. Capital drops below 2m again, although it puts on a few hours. Capital Xtra seems to be suffering badly in the same week that Ofcom rejected complaints about it straying from its format – down to just 323,000 (it used to get around half a million as Choice). <\/p>\n

But the really bad news is Heart. It’s down to 1.4m reach and just under 8m hours – 21% and 31% falls on the previous quarter. It’s difficult to say what this is. They had some appalling RAJARs a couple of quarters or so back, but looked like they’d improved until this quarter. <\/p>\n

And I can’t say it has been a stellar RAJAR for Bauer in London either. Kiss was down 3% in reach and 10% in hours on the quarter, and 9% in reach and 8% in hours on the year. Magic is modestly up on the quarter in reach and hours, but worryingly down 16% on the year in hours. <\/p>\n

That all means that Capital gets sole rights to be number one in London in reach and hours.<\/p>\n

Finally, I should say something about digital, because it’s now reached 37.8% of listening – a new high. DAB is up to 24.5% of listening, a new record, and internet listening (including phone apps) is up to 6.4%. <\/p>\n