On The Eighth

The latest radio audience figures from RAJAR are published today. The results cover the second quarter of the year. Here are five things we’ve learned:

1. 90% of the UK listen to the radio each week Of the 54 million aged 15 and over in the UK  49 million of them listen to radio at least once week. The average listener is hearing  21 hours of radio in a week.

2. Commercial radio has its highest listening figures ever 35.9 million adults listen weekly to commercial radio putting it ahead of all BBC radio (34.9m). In the younger 15-44 year old bracket commercial radio has 30% more listeners than the BBC and takes a 58% share of all their radio listening.

3. Digital’s rise continues 61% of adults in the UK listen to radio digitally. The most popular method of digital listening is through a DAB radio while is fastest growing sector of digital listening is via online/apps which grew by nearly 10% over the last year.

For all ages under 54 more than half their listening is done digitally.

The biggest digital only radio station is BBC 6 Music.

4. Radio 2 is the country’s most listened to station, Heart the most popular commercial service

Here’s how they stack up:

5. Radio fits on the phone RAJAR’s latest MIDAS survey shows that 26 million of us have downloaded a radio app to our smartphone. That’s 49% of the adult population. Amongst 15-34 year olds the figure is higher, 62% of them have downloaded radio apps to their phones.

Finally 9 million people listen to radio in earphones each month.

If you have a RAJAR question, whether about the big picture or a local market, or want to talk radio don’t hesitate to get in touch on [email protected]

The radio listening figures for the first quarter of 2017 have been released. Here, without the spin, are the facts.

1. Radio is a mass medium

89% of all adults in the UK listen to the radio at some point in the week, that’s 48.2 million of them.

The average radio listener hears 21.2 hours of radio every single week

Commercial radio reaches 64% of adults in a week.

2. Digital Radio continues to expand

59% of the population tune in to digital radio every week

47% of all radio listening is done digitally now

31 million adults own a DAB digital radio

A quarter of all adults and 36% of 15 to 24 year olds listen to radio through their mobile phone or tablets

3. Commercial Radio is ahead of the BBC 

Commercial radio stations are attracting 34.5 million weekly listeners, BBC radio stations are reaching 34.2 million each week.

17.7 million (70%) in the 15-44 age group listen to commercial radio each week compared to 13.8 million who listen to the BBC.

Radio in pictures

Here are a couple of charts which show the current state of play. Firstly a look at which of the national networks get the most weekly listeners. BBC Radio 2 leads the way with 15 million listeners, Heart is the number one commercial network with 8.7 million.

And the growth of digital listening is clear to see with this chart showing the number of people listening to the radio digitally in a week.

If you want to see more facts on the radio audience and how they consume radio content RAJAR has produced a handy infographic here 

If you have a RAJAR question, whether about the big picture or a local market, or want to talk radio don’t hesitate to get in touch on [email protected]

The latest set of radio listening figures are out, covering the end of last year. Do they show UK radio starting 2017 in a good place?

Well, radio’s popularity is still strong and growing. 90% of us tune in to a live radio station at some point during the week. That’s up from 89% in in third quarter of 2016.

48.7 million adults are listening to the radio every week and the average listener spends 21 and a half hours of their week listening to live radio. That’s over one billion hours of radio being heard in the UK every single week.

What are they listening to? Radio 2 remains the nation's favourite radio station with the Heart network taking the top spot amongst commercial channels.

Commercial radio continues to attract more younger listeners than the BBC getting 72% of 15-44 year olds compared to the BBC's 56%. The BBC still has more listeners over 45. How are they listening?

Digital Radio's share of listening time has risen 8% across 2016 to 45.2%. That’s listening spread across DAB sets, phones, laptops and TVs. It’s not just a digital-elite either, with over half of all radio listeners using a digital device at some point.

In 2010 only a quarter of radio listening was done digitally.

31 million of us now own at least one DAB radio set, smartphone use is growing so radio is in a good place to go with new technologies.

Summary

Radio is the medium you can use whilst doing other things. Driving, working, browsing online, domestic duties and more. It's no surprise it is used by nine out of ten adults in the UK every single week, or that they spend a large amount of time listening. As we move into an ever-more connected world radio is already there and already thriving.

Rajar has released the latest radio audience figures. It gives radio stations a chance to boast about their audience sizes but what sits below the press releases?

Mr and Mrs Average

The average adult in the UK spends 19.2 hours each week listening to the radio and 89% of adults listen to the radio every week. The average listener is hearing over three hours of radio a day. Radio remains a true mass medium product.

Mr or Mrs average is listening to some form of digital radio in a typical week. 59% of the population are hearing radio on DAB, online or through TV at some point in a week. 57% of us have access to a DAB digital radio now and 26% of us listen to radio via a mobile phone or tablet in a month.

In terms of listener numbers the BBC and commercial radio are neck-and-neck with both reaching 64% of the population each week.

Younger listeners are more likely to choose commercial radio over the BBC. 72% of under 45s listen to commercial stations compared with 56% of them who tune in to the BBC.

72% of over 45s listen to BBC stations across a week, 58% listen to commercial radio.

What are they listening to?

Radio 2 is the station with the most listeners in the UK getting 15.1 million a week. Commercially the Heart Network is the most popular attracting 9.1 million weekly listeners.

Trendspotting

We're seeng more and more consumption of radio digitally. DAB set ownership has increased 6% in the past year and the amount of time spent listening to the radio digitally is up 9%.

Millions are now listening to digital only stations each week. Some of the newer stations which only came on air earlier this year off to a solid start.

In a nutshell:

• 89% of UK adults listen to the radio each week • As a country we spend one billion hours a week listening to the radio • Digital radio listening and digital radio stations are on the rise

Source: RAJAR/Ipsos MORI/RSMB 27th October 2016

The latest radio listening figures are released today, here’s a look behind the press releases to see what the actual story is.

The top line is that radio in the UK is listened to by 48.7 million adults every single week, that’s 90% of the population. The average listener is hearing 21 and a half hours of radio each week.

Commercial radio stations continue to take a bigger slice of the younger 15-44 year old audience with the BBC more dominant with older audiences. 74% of 15-44 year olds listen to commercial radio weekly compared with just 56% who listen to the BBC.

There’s been a big change in the industry over the past 12 months with a raft of stations launching that are either all digital or mostly digital. This set of results is the first chance to see how many people are tuning in to these new stations.

Of the newer stations Virgin Radio is the star picking up 409,000 listeners a week, talkRADIO gets 224,000 listeners and talkSPORT2 records 285,000. Bauer’s Mellow Magic debuts with 380,000 listeners and their Magic Chilled station gets 233,000.

Radio X, which has been around slightly longer and has FM coverage in London and Manchester, is getting 1.2 millions listeners each week.

You can see how these numbers stack up against the longer standing digital stations below.

The new figures also reveal how people are consuming their radio stations:

More people than ever listen to radio digitally at some point in a week (59%)

56% of us own a DAB digital radio (up from a third in 2009)

27% of the audience listen to radio via a mobile phone or tablet at least once a month.

Finally the overall picture shows Radio 2 is still the nation’s favourite station with Heart leading the way for commercial radio.

While the newer national digital stations take hold there’s still plenty of life in the existing local stations with Clyde 1 in Glasgow and Wave 105 on the South Coast posting strong results with increased audience.

With one in nine adults listening each week, digital listening growing, new stations launching and existing stations staying strong, radio is proving to be a robust media in these changing times.

*source RAJAR/Ipsos MORI/ RSMB

The latest radio listening from figures from RAJAR are released today. It’s usually a day of spin with every radio operator able to point out a bright side to their numbers.

Here are the facts:

FACT 1 - 89% of adults in the UK listen to the radio at some point during the week, that’s 47.8 million people.

FACT 2 - 44.1% of radio listening is now done digitally

FACT 3 - Radio 2 remains the UK’s most listened to radio station

Heart is the commercial network with the most listeners.

FACT 4 - The average listener hears 21 hours of radio every single week

FACT 5 - 56% of the country now own at least one DAB digital radio - that’s 30 million adults who have one

FACT 6 - 37% of 15 to 24 year olds listen to the radio via their mobile phone or tablet

FACT 7 - BBC 6 Music is the digital only station with the most listeners

FACT 8 - Commercial radio is the preferred choice of 15 to 44 year olds

*source RAJAR/Ipsos MORI/ RSMB

With the second coming of Virgin Radio this week it seems like a good time to have a look at the plethora of new radio stations that have become available over the past six months or so. It’s not a medium that looks like it’s going backwards any time soon.

Nationally....

We start back in September with the national launch of Radio X which brought back to radio personality presenters Chris Moyles, Vernon Kaye and Johnny Vaughan.

With a new DAB Digital Radio multiplex coming online this year there has been a steady stream of new national stations appearing over the past few weeks.

talkRADIO does what its name suggests. It’s all talk with experienced presenters such as Paul Ross, Julia Hartley-Brewer and Iain Lee.

talkSPORT2 is a sister station to talkSPORT featuring live commentaries on a variety of sports and discussion programmes.

Virgin Radio launched from a train this week and promises “music you’ll want to turn up”. Edith Bowman and Kate Lawler are amongst the presenters.

Mellow Magic and Magic Chilled are brand extensions of the successful Magic format. If you want it laid back these are for you. Radio newcomers Patsy Kensit and John Hannah are on the presenter roster for Mellow Magic.

You can also hear, for the first time nationally, Share Radio (which covers business, finance and money) and Fun Kids.

In the North West...

Locally there have been new launches on DAB Digital Radio in Manchester including Manchester Business Radio, Chris Country (all country music) and the Steve Penk Wind-Up Channel.

Finally the station that was Real Radio XS has now become XS Manchester mixing classic rock and football.

These new outlets show a trend away from stations that try to be many things to many people. We're now getting clearly defined channels offering very specific content. Great news for discerning listeners and advertisers alike.

The Lowry Theatre invited us to the opening night of The Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Romeo and Juliet. It’s part of their Shakespeare 400 event.

Here’s a podcast we have produced for them, including a chance encounter, a Mother’s Day present and a ballet convert.

Ofcom has just published the details of some research it has carried out into local commercial radio. Participants kept a diary of their radio listening and also went without radio for a day to highlight what it was they missed when they had nothing to listen to.

The key findings show off a lot of radio’s strengths:

Radio is seen as an “accessible, universally available and dependable medium”

Radio serves as a companion, bringing background noise to otherwise quiet environments

Radio helps lighten the mood during everyday routines

Listeners feel they have relationships with presenters and personalities

Radio is seen as a key source of local content because it’s easy to get and immediate

The findings show radio ranks highly as a friend, it’s a trusted source of information and radio’s simplicity and ease of use is a key benefit.

The Ofcom report also looked at how radio compared to other media. They found that on going online it was much more work to find the content you wanted compared to radio. Social media was seen as useful for breaking news but some participants worried about the tone and accuracy of the conversation around such stories.

Some of the panel highlighted that, compared to music streaming services, radio’s lack of subscription payments and data usage was also a key positive.

There’s lots more in the report which you can read here.

British drivers couldn’t live without the radio in their car. That’s one of the findings from new research conducted by UK Radioplayer in the UK, France and Germany.

They found that:

75% of all in-car listening is to the radio

84% of drivers always or mostly listen to the radio on every journey

82% would not considering buying a new car if it didn’t have a radio

73% of UK drivers said, if forced, they’d keep the radio in the car over other entertainment options such as CD player, MP3 player and music streaming.

Some of the quotes in the research show why radio in the car is so loved:

“Effortless, one button and you’re in”

“Can’t imagine my car without it”

“it links me to the outside”

“vital component of the car. Like tyres and the steering wheel”

Simplicity, companionship and utility. Three of radio’s strengths making it the number one in-car choice.

Find out more on UK Radioplayer’s website.

When we had a look at the recent radio ratings we pointed out that the younger demographics were listening more to commercial radio than to the BBC.

What is also worth pointing out is that, for the first time in 15 years, commercial radio now has more listeners than BBC radio. Across a week 35.1 million adults tune in to a commercial radio station compared to the 34.9 million that listen to all of the BBC.

Great news for the commercial sector which now has four and a quarter million more weekly listeners than 10 years ago. Which stations are getting this new audience?

There’s good news from Bauer’s national services. The Kiss network is up almost half a million listeners across 2015, the Magic Network has added 580,000 over the year. Absolute Radio has grown by 358,000 over the 12 months.

Their main competitor for commercial audience, Global Radio, is up by 1.2 million listeners across 2015.

With more listening choice than ever before and an array of new online services it’s good to see commercial radio at number one.

The latest radio ratings are released today and show digital ruling, a strong commercial sector and a Chris Moyles fuelled debut for Radio X.

These figures cover the last quarter of 2015.

90% of the UK’s adult population listen to radio at least weekly. In an era of massive media change this figure has been remarkably constant over the past decade or more.

What has changed is how people are listening. These latest figures show more growth in digital listening across 2015, with 54% of the country now owning at least one DAB digital radio.

Radio stations with a strong national digital presence such as BBC 6 Music, Radio 4 Extra, LBC, Kiss and Absolute have all seen their audiences grow through 2015.

As you can see from the chart below BBC Networks dominate the top spots for the biggest total audiences with Heart the commercial network with the most listeners.

However it’s commercial radio that the younger listeners are spending most of their time listening to. Commercial radio has a 62% market share with 15-24 year olds and 57% of 25-44 year olds.

Finally this survey is the first to feature Radio X. XFM departed the scene with 1 million listeners across the UK and its replacement, the new Radio X, with Chris Moyles on the Breakfast Show, arrives with 1.2 million. In London alone Chris Moyles has added 84,000 listeners compared with the previous breakfast show.

Do you have a specific radio ratings question? Maybe you need to compare competing radio station’s claims. Drop us an email to [email protected] and we’ll give you an answer.

Capital Radio launched in Liverpool today and they’ve backed up the launch with a new advert featuring some of the music world’s biggest names.

It’s time to fire up the analytics and see what our most read blogs of the year are

1. Suddenly Everyone Wants to be on the Radio - a whole host of big companies made moves into the audio market through the year.

2. Radio it Reacts Rapidly - radio is off the blocks faster than many others.

3. Two New Radio Station Ads - from Kiss and Radio X

4. National Commercial Radio on the Up - the rise of Absolute, Talksport and more.

5. Chasing Men - radio turned it’s attention to the male population

Thank you for reading those and all our other blogs over the past 12 months. Have a great time over the festive period. We’ll speak to you in 2016.

It's sentimental, it's got an 'unplugged' version of a huge hit, and it's emotional as ever... But this time it adds a reality to the emotional punch... You've seen it by now of course, but just in case here is the new John Lewis juggernaut for Christmas 2015.

This year it isn't just about generally making life better through giving.  This year the theme addressed the real problem, of the people who will be lonely this Christmas.

(By buying them a present of course). Radio is superb as a brand awareness tool. Perhaps it is at its strongest in this field.  If you can use your creative to make your brand synonymous with not just changing the individual’s life, but changing the world for the better too, surely you’ll gain custom but also loyalty. (And sell some telescopes).

This week saw the release of the latest UK radio audience figures from RAJAR, covering the third quarter of 2015.  Here is our independent review of what they show.

UK radio listening is strong with 89.3% of all adults listening to the radio at some point each week, and some interesting change around the younger, and digital market.

National

The BBC’s national networks have delivered strong results this quarter. BBC Radio 1 is up year on year and now has 10.56 million listeners. BBC Radio 2’s weekly audience has grown again to 15.38 million.

Commercially, Heart is still the UK’s largest radio brand with over 9 million listeners across the country each week. Capital has 8 million listeners and Smooth has 5.5 million listeners.

The Absolute Radio network records highest ever reach of 4.2 million listeners and talkSPORT is up with 3.2 million weekly reach.

Digital

Digital listening is on the rise with 56% of the populating tuning in on a digital platform each week. 29 million adults now claim to own a DAB radio. This has led to some record figures for digital only stations.

BBC Radio 4 Extra is the UK most listened to digital station with 2.2m listeners and 6 Music has grown to 2.19m listeners. Absolute 80s is still the number commercial digital only station growing by 10% to 1.57 million listeners. Kisstory grew year on year by 34% to 1.3 million listeners.

The Social Effect

With ever growing focus on how radio stations connect with audiences beyond traditional radio, we know from this RAJAR release that 42% of 15-24 year olds receive social media updates from a radio station or presenter.

41% of that demographic also claim to listen to their favourite station via a mobile phone or tablet at least once a month.

The Battle For London

All the major national brands have been fighting for the London top spot, and the winner this quarter is Bauer Media.

Kiss has 2.089 million listeners compared with Capital’s 2,086 million, a difference of only 3,000 listeners. Magic on 1,711 million listeners followed by Heart on 1,661 million.

The Local Picture

In local markets across the UK, Smooth Radio North East recorded its highest ever audience with 517,000 weekly listeners. That’s more Capital, Heart and Metro in this competitive market.

Smooth North West continues to be the biggest station in the North West but has lost its recently acquired title of the biggest station outside London, with Capital Yorkshire back on top.

Who knows if Michelle Obama actually chose her playlist which has just been released on Spotify.

And maybe Barack Obama also chose the ‘evening’ and ‘daytime’ playlists earlier in the year...

It is likely that, whether their decision alone, or a team effort, the songs will have been carefully selected to fit the brand.

At On The Eighth we know about choosing the right music for your brand.  We’ll use our expertise in matching music and audience to make sure you avoid unintended political fallout.  As Donald Trump has just found out with the help of Aerosmith, who have ordered him to stop using thier music for his campagin! 

Enjoy the First Lady’s playlist here.