NewsLine Interview: Steve Parkinson – Managing Director Heart 106.2
Last week the latest RAJAR figures for the third quarter of 2003 saw Heart 106.2 bring an end to almost ten years of snapping at the heels of Capital 95.8. The station inched past its oldest and fiercest rival to become London’s most listened to commercial radio service in terms of share of listening.
Heart’s managing director, Steve Parkinson, spoke to NewsLine about the victory and explained that bringing an end to Capital’s thirty year reign at the top was particularly significant because it happened sooner than had been expected. He said: “We knew we were going pretty well, but overtaking Capital happened a year earlier than our business plans predicted, which will no doubt mean a bit of a shake up for the whole London market.”
Heart launched back in 1995 after beating off competition from more than forty rival stations to secure its London licence. Parkinson revealed the station has had its sights set firmly on toppling Capital for some time. “Three years ago when I came in as managing director and Francis Currie came in as programming director we changed the attitude of the Heart staff. And rather than fight in that whole Capital, Heart, Virgin, Magic area, we decided to concentrate on the top dog,” he explained.
Heart has seen its popularity increase steadily of late thanks largely to its female friendly approach to programming and a move away from a reliance on the increasingly diverse pop acts that dominate the charts. Meanwhile, Capital has had a slightly rougher ride following a series of major changes, which included a revamped breakfast show and the introduction of a new edgier music policy.
Capital’s troubles could intensify further when lynchpin DJ, Chris Tarrant, leaves his job as presenter of the weekday breakfast show early next year to be replaced by former Big Breakfast host Johnny Vaughan. However, the station is currently working hard to reposition towards its core youth audience and still leads the field in terms of weekly reach with around 2.3 million listeners, compared to just over 1.9 million for Heart.
Parkinson is confident Heart will continue to strengthen its hold on the notoriously fierce London market, despite increasing competition from a resurgent Magic 105.4 and a dance focussed Kiss 100, which recently stepped up its marketing activity with a wide-ranging £1.8 million campaign. However, he is sceptical about the possibility of overtaking Capital in terms of reach and claims to be enjoying the calm before the impending storm.
He said: “We are around three hundred odd thousand listeners away from beating Capital on reach and I think the plan is to continue to programme and market Heart by stealth, rather than trying to generate lots of major headlines. We’ve built our success on working away in the background slowly and gradually, so I don’t expect we will overtake Capital in terms of reach in the very next RAJARs. However, they’ve been having a pretty bad time and we’ve been having a pretty good time, so who knows what could happen?”
Figures from Nielsen Media Research show that Heart still pulls in significantly less advertising revenue that its closest rival, which has long enjoyed the luxury of trading off its position as market leader. However, Parkinson argues that changes to the programming policy and the departure of Chris Tarrant could prompt advertisers to look elsewhere.
He said: “Until last week Capital 95.8 FM has dominated the market for thirty years, they also charge a premium particularly for Chris Tarrant and until maybe two or three years ago many agencies would only consider Tarrant for some of the major promotions, launches, or cinema premičres. Whether it was airtime or sponsorship and promotions, Capital was always regarded as the only real choice that you would go to if you wanted to get a broad section of London, but that’s changing quite fast now.”
Heart is planning a number of marketing initiatives to take it forward over the coming months and Parkinson predicts that by this time next year the station will be well on its way to taking one fifth of the London market in terms of weekly reach. He said: “We are on around 19% at the moment and 20% should be well within our grasp. Everybody in London has had to sharpen up their act recently and it would be great to beat Capital on reach so that we could be number one in everything.”
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