Rajar Q4 2017: Analysis
As Rajar releases its latest figures for the UK radio market, Jodie Stranger and Liz Duff analyse the results
Jodie Stranger, CEO UK group and president global clients EMEA, Starcom
The main headlines from the latest Rajar results still circle the traditional battlegrounds of BBC versus commercial, breakfast listening, and the trade-off of the big network players. Whilst the BBC vs commercial merry-go-round continues, and the ‘smaller’ stations steal a march on the big networks behemoths, the slow but steady rise of digital listening is transitioning the platform into ‘mainstream’ audio listening.
Both weekly reach and total hours for all radio dipped at the back end of 2017 vs quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year figures, but for digital audio, this trend is reversed. Digital radio now reaches 61.7% of the national population, a 1% increase on Q3 and 6.6% for the same period in 2016.
Dwell time on digital shows an even starker improvement in total hours, 1.4% up vs the previous Rajar and 9.3% vs Q4 2016. In an average week, this now counts for 518 million hours of radio consumption with DAB taking a 73% share vs 10% on digital TV and 17% for online/app listening.
The show of strength this quarter comes from those digital stations with a strong focus youth listening, with the likes of Radio X, Kisstory, Kiss Fresh making big gains in weekly listeners. Whilst the obvious points to a connection between digital listening and younger demographics, the rise of voice activation devices and ‘in car’ technology is helping the audio industry traverse the digital divide. 70% of Amazon Echo users use it to listen to the radio and in-car digital has increased by 25% year on year.
For advertisers, agencies and media owners alike, this prompts the opportunity to turn a mass market medium into a truly targeted proposition. The move into the digital audio space is now creating new opportunities and new ways to enjoy a traditional medium.
As an industry, there needs to be a shift in mind-set from how we overcome the fear of “new tech” challenges to how we can use them to drive more engagement and enjoyment in the competition for the most important of our commodities – time.
Liz Duff, Head of Media and Investment, Total Media
A strong set of results from RAJAR confirm what we’ve been seeing in consumer behaviour – listening is back in vogue, and brands and advertisers would do well to take note. Despite some drops in national station audiences, such as Bauer and Global, rises in digital listening – now accounting for three in five adults – show us that when the content is easily accessible and engaging, audiences will tune in.
Further, Bauer’s Kiss was up 11% to just under 2.4m listeners – a youth radio station still pulling in new listeners, demonstrating the value of audio both in the current market and going forward. Rather than being a ‘legacy’ media that is getting corroded by new platforms, radio is going from strength to strength.