RAJAR Qtr 4 2010; "The numbers are in..."

So it was listening figures time again in the UK this week... and what did we learn?

Well, there are some nice headlines about 90% of the population listening to the radio every week and of course every group or station puts a shine on their particular figures, so no-one seems to be real loser (although of course they can’t all be right!)

A few things caught my eye.

First, I was disappointed at the rate of growth for Digital Listening with a rather modest 0.2% rise in the quarter to a 25% share of all listening via platform. As part of that, DAB was up 0.5% quarter on quarter, and still remains the most popular way of consuming digital radio (15.8% share), but I can’t help feeling that the momentum has slowed a little, and being a firm believer in the importance of radio to ‘go digital’ in future, it’s frustrating to see such slow progress.

What’s the answer? Well... more unique content and stations on DAB would help. It was encouraging to see the continued growth of stations like Absolute 80s (up to 665,000 weekly reach), Absolute 90s (cuming 295,000) and even the recently refreshed Planet Rock (with a new high of 827,000) doing so well. It shows that when there is great content or a different offer on Digital, listeners will gravitate towards it. Niche formats on digital seem to be the way forward. Just make sure your niche is big enough!

Talk radio is proving more and more popular in the UK with the growth of TalkSport as a format (now reaches over 3 Million a week), BBC 5Live gaining record audiences (now over 7 million), and 97.3 LBC in London (almost reaching 1 million a week), radio audience are lapping up mainstream and populist speech content. BBC Radio 4 has always delivered great audiences, but it’s a very different offering to the former 3. It would be great to see the success of speech radio in a local form in the commercial sector outside London; a trick has proved quite difficult to perform so far. Perhaps as some mainstream music radio does less and less speech, the ‘talk sector’ will benefit more in the future.

Meanwhile in London, Magic continue to outperform its commercial rivals taking top spot in reach and share. Its consistent blend of ‘light favourites’ and inoffensive links seems to be just the job for stressed out Londoners! As I write, they’ve just played Amy Winehouse - ‘Back to Black’ into Candi Staton ‘Young Hearts, Run Free’. Lovely ;-)

Capital are just behind Magic, and still sounding good. The benefit of their big TV campaign and the impact of the networking will be felt next quarter. Kiss have overtaken Heart into 3rd place in terms of reach, which is a great result for Kiss and will be naturally disappointing for Heart, who have really lost touch with Magic now. Next in Kiss’s sights will be Capital, and you can hear how tight the battle is between those two simply by listening to how close the music formats are in the daytime. Want Tinie Tempah, Bruno Mars, Rhianna or Mike Posner? Well either station will suffice right now!

So as the number crunchers do their thing, and stations up and down the UK have an explosion of PowerPoint and Excel, it’s nice to know that above it all, the UK is one of the most vibrant and creative radio markets in the whole world with some fantastic formats, and some superb broadcasters. There really is always something great to listen to... and the continued growth of ‘listen again’ / on-demand / podcasts etc, means that you don’t even have to worry that you missed a particular show.

It’s radio that waits ‘till it’s wanted.

Now that’s Magic! ;-)

"Everywhere's Got Talent!"

Where do you get new talent from?

Where do you get new talent for your radio station from? Developing the stars of tomorrow is an important job for any station. Making sure that there’s always a new generation of people coming through the ranks is vital to the lifeblood of a creative industry.

There has been quite a lot of talk recently in the UK about the opportunities for young hopefuls to get their break being much curtailed. Networking, centralisation and syndication has resulted in fewer on-air position, fewer live overnight shows, and fewer places for people to learn their trade. At the same time, it must be said, we have also seen a growth in community and student radio. These places can be a great breeding ground for new talent. And let’s not forget ‘hospital radio’, which in the UK is often where young guys and girls who like the idea of being on the radio first put on a pair of headphones and speak into a microphone.... all be it speaking to people who are a captive audience, but nevertheless, it’s a start!

But talent is all around us, and to prove it, Kiss 100 in London have launched “The Chosen One”. With the tagline ‘We’re searching for the next Kiss Presenter – could you be in the line-up?”... it’s a great way to not only look for new talent, but to promote your station within its core audience.

There are open auditions at some of the big shopping centres around London (great event marketing) or you can submit a demo. The whole thing is sponsored by Blackberry who want to position themselves as cutting edge and connected with ‘new things’, so there is an important revenue stream too.

What a great piece of new year activity from Kiss!

So, what are some of the ways to find new talent for your station?

1. Hold a ‘Search for a Star’
As discussed, do what Kiss are doing right now and hold a talent search. It’s one of the oldest formats in the book but works great. It’s a perfect way to get publicity and find someone good for your station. Make sure they get a decent programme out of it so you can continue to the PR for as long as possible!

2. Comedy Clubs
‘Stand Up’ and ‘radio’ are very different, but if you’re looking for a new personality for your station (maybe on the morning show), often comedy clubs can be a great place to start. Many comedians have never thought about transferring their skills to radio, but with the right coaching it can be done.

3. Your Own Staff
Look around your radio station. I bet there are quite a few people who are great entertainers in the office, and can tell a great story or always make the office laugh... or even just have a great voice. Try out a few in a studio one evening and see what they sound like. You never know, your receptionist might be a morning show star waiting to happen. You can train skills, but you can’t train attitude. Get people with the right attitude! It will pay off massively.

4. The Real World
I meet lots of new people every week. Sure, not all of them could be on the radio, but there times where I think “This person would be great on the radio”. So keep your eyes and ears open. Sometimes really talented communicators are doing a completely different job, but their ability could be transferred on to the radio with a bit of coaching and some encouragement.

5. Clubs
If your brand is targeted slightly younger and has a cool, credible vibe... then go check out all the cool clubs in your town. Is the big resident DJ well known? Would putting him on the radio add something to your brand? I remember back in the 90’s in Liverpool, my local station took some of the coolest dance music DJ’s and gave them a Saturday night show from 6pm to 3am each week, with different DJ’s popping in to do different hours!! As you can imagine, all the younger listeners loved hearing the DJ’s they knew from the clubs on the radio, and it added a real sense of kudos to the station. And by 2am, it really was worth a listen what they were getting up to in the studio!!! ;-) They may need some coaching to transfer their skills, but you could really add something to the image of your station.

So keep your eyes and ears open. Your market is full of great new talent waiting to be discovered. You’ve just got to look in the right places!

Name That Show

Congratulations to Mads Vangsø and the team at client station, Radio 100FM in Denmark, who this week successfully launched their brand new morning show.

It's called "Farvel seng – jeg elsker dig!". For those of you who don't speak fluent Danish... let me translate! The new show is called "Goodbye Bed - I Love You!"

With a title like that, you know you're in for something a little bit different!!

The issue of show names comes up from time to time. Should you name all your shows or only some of them... or none at all? Personally, naming all of your shows I think is a step too far, but giving your morning show a strong identity isn't a bad thing. Creating a sub-brand that listeners associate with your station is a nice shorthand for them, and can help define the show before a potential listener even hears it.

"The Rehab" - Sunday morning's on Kiss 100 London... you kinda know you're going to get chill out tunes! 'The Morning After' which is Kerrang! Radio's new morning show has some attitude to it... and ties in well with their late show that is appropriately titled "The Night Before"!

And while we're on the subject of show name... can we please impose a worldwide ban on "The Morning Crew" or "Dave and The Morning Crew"! It's so dated!

A 'crew' of people isn't something I would really want to wake up with, unless I was working on a ship or travelling on the Space Shuttle.

"Hi - you wanna come round and hang out with The Crew?"

"Where are calling from.... 1987?"

OK - I'll stop now. You get the point.

Jack Off!

A nice bit of guerrilla marketing by, the soon to be launched, Jack FM Oxford, as they gatecrashed Fox FM's 18th Birthday Party handing out their own birthday card to party goers.

This type of activity is perfect for the cheeky and irreverent style that I'm sure Jack FM will bring to Oxford.

There's probably a whole book to write on great competitive things that rival stations have done to each other. A nice one that sticks in my mind is when Bam Bam, who was working at Kiss 100 at the time, bought a classic fire engine, complete with turntable ladder... just so he could drive it to Leicester Square... extend the ladder... and put a Kiss Sticker on the 3rd floor window where the Capital studio was. Cheeky, funny, perfect for that show and that station at the time.

He now broadcasts inside that very studio that he 'stickered' all those years ago. Funny how things work out!

Anyway - We should all look forward to seeing some nice marketing ideas coming out of Jack FM once it has launched. The countdown is on to Thursday 18th October at 1:06pm. Well they are on 106FM... so what did you expect!

The Heroes of RAJAR - Qtr 2 2007

As the dust settles on another batch of RAJAR press releases and UK radio stations draw up the list of people to promote... or fire, it's time to pick out the villains and heroes... and no, not the flying senator, or indestructible cheerleader types.

There were a few main stories that are worthy of mention.

Kiss overtake Capital
Congratulations to the guys at Kiss, who have finally caught up with Capital. We've certainly discussed the possibility of them catching Capital before on this blog, and now it's happened. With Kiss at a 4.5% reach and Capital dropping to 4.1% and the reach neck and neck at 1.51 Million, there were probably two very different meetings taking place at the respective stations on RAJAR evening last week.

Kiss's offering continues to sound fresh and connected to young London and the new morning show with Rickie and Melvin is starting to take root. For me, Capital's issue is not with the execution of the format. They've gone young and the product sounds fine. No, it's the strategy that I find difficult to understand. Capital seem to have left Heart and Magic to slug it out at the top, while settling for trying to pick up Radio 1, Kiss and Xfm listeners along the way. The move is bold... but I can't help thinking it won't get you to Number 1 in London again. The team in Leicester Square have a real battle on and I hope Steve Orchard's words of August 2006 where he the "believed the station had hit rock bottom", don't get rolled out too much over the next few weeks. The city certainly gave GCap a good kicking, with quotes like "GCap has marketed Capital in this quarter, so there can be no excuses for these results!" Ouch!

The Jazz... Nice!
Debuting with 334,000 listeners is a pretty nice job! Taking a listen to the station, the formula is the same as has been applied to Classic FM; take a specialist music genre, and make it as accessible to as many people as possible. Classic FM took the fear out of listening to classical music... and The Jazz will do the same for Jazz.

More for Moyles
If I was sitting in GCap Towers... or even EMAP towers for that reason, I'd find the biggest pot of money I could lay my hands on and send it all to Chris Moyles on the condition that he came to a daily show for the network I was running. (Believe me... it's been thought of!) His show goes from strength to strength and is testament to hard work, good production and 'letting the talent get on with it'. With 7.26 Million listeners a week, he can play his "Saviour of Radio 1" jingle as much as he wants now!

The Future is... Digital
More people are listening to radio and more are using digital technologies to do this. 2 Million 15-24's listen on mobile phones and almost 13% of total listening by all adults is now done on either DAB, DTV or the internet. Let's compare this figure in 12 months time to see the continued growth, and then factor in the Channel 4 effect too!

So, as ever... always something interesting to mull over. Now if only we knew someone who could paint the radio future... Hmmm... I wonder...

RAJAR Qtr 1 2007 - The Post Mortem Part 2 - London

The London market is taking on a familiar pattern at the moment with Heart and Magic engaged in a titanic battle for the top commercial station in London.

Both have held their 'Number 1 in London' status and lost it. But who has the upper hand? Well, interestingly if you look at an average of the share figures over the last 2 years dating back to Qtr 1 2005, Magic averages at a 5.7%, while Heart averages at a 6.0%. Magic have only achieved anywhere in the 7's once, while Heart have managed it twice in last 2 years and their impressive 7.1% is the largest share figure generated by either of these 2 broadcasting adversaries. 1-0 to Heart on share.

And what about the reach 'glass ceiling'? Well - Magic have achieved a 1.867 Million record in the same period and Heart have been 'oh so close' to the (dare I say "magic") figure of 2 Million, cume-ing a 1.911 Million back in Qtr 3 2005. So based on share and reach, it's Heart 2 - Magic 0.

Magic may have nudged back in the lead with this book, but to continue torturing the football-ing analogy... this match has a long time left to play and any pundit would predict that Heart will be back on top before too long.

Capital got an important PR and morale booster of regaining the 'Number 1 Commercial Breakfast Show'. However, the share figure dipped to a new low of 4.6%... considerably lower than either Heart or Magic have ever been in the last 2 years. The new Capital format feels to me more like Radio 1 than anything else on the dial currently, and taking them on will prove tricky when Radio 1 is so strong in London at the moment, chalking up a 1.65 Million reach and 6.7% share in the London TSA.

Kiss didn't capitalise on the closeness with Capital in reach from the previous quarter and dipped back to 1.35 Million, but they're trending up.

So, what does it all mean? The latest set of figures continue to show that playing in some part of the 'AC' arena is essential if you're to currently have any traction in the London commercial radio market. A rejuvenated 'Smooth' will take some time to get going, and may eat into the 12 or so AC share points up for grabs in the market... which could open up some room for Capital, if the audience feel they have found the right format.

Final honourable mention goes to Kismat Radio, who have a year on year reach increase of 71%! A GCap takeover is only a matter of time!

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!