Friday 2 February 2007

Kiss 100 - Kisstory Repeating?

One of the more interesting developments in the London markets to come out the W4 2006 RAJAR figures (apart from Heart's excellent showing) is Kiss 100.

Recently refurbished and refitted with a shiny, Andy Roberts style make-over, it's regained most of the ground it lost in the previous quarter, but overall the trend for 2006 is up, and things are looking good.

It currently sits on a 1,445,000 reach and a 3.9% share of the market.

Now, if we look back a bit, we can all see that the potential of Kiss is a lot higher then where they are right now. The largest cume the station had was back in W3 2002, when numbers peaked at just over 1.7 Million! And the station has even pulled a 5% share. Can Kiss do it again?

What makes this even more interesting is Capital's repositioning back into the 'Hits' arena seemingly engaging with a younger market. (e.g "London's Hit Music Station", hotter imaging, a pretty young skew to all their music now). One would say that Capital is trying to regain more 15-34's... a demo which Kiss lead in.

When you look at the overall reach of both stations...

Capital - 1,463,000
Kiss - 1,445,000

... it's all to play for.

If the musical cycle swings Kiss's way this summer, with lots of credible pop/dance and some club anthems crossing over, Kiss could have a bumper 2007 and potentially overtake Capital in overall reach (and even share).

Now Capital may well be marketing in a substantial way this year, and if the recent changes to the station are allowed to bed in and prove popular, then the fight for younger listeners in London will be an interesting one.

And why is Kiss on the rise again? Is it the pointy new logo that's got London talking? Is it their rather flashy new web offering that people can't stop visiting?

Or is it perhaps the very palatable and very melodic nature of the daytime music offering?

More on this to follow I suspect!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Keep up the good work.