Bauer set to close digital music station Mojo

Bauer has announced that it will be closing its national digital music station Mojo at the end of the month.

The station, which was launched in 2003 as a spin-off from the music magazine, has an average of around 260,000 listeners per week according to the latest RAJAR release (see Year on Year Rise In Reach For Radio 2).

Bauer said the station’s closure is a result of the current economic situation but no redundancies are expected as a result.

The multi-platform media group now plans to prioritise resources on three of its other digital stations – Heat Radio, Q and Smash Hits.

Mark Story, managing director at Bauer Radio, said: “We had to make a very difficult choice where the resources would go and decided they were best going into building the other parts of the portfolio.”

However, some of Mojo’s output may be featured on a new strand within Q radio, another magazine spin-off, which was re-launched in June this year (see Q Radio To Relaunch Next Month).

Mojo is one of the most high-profile digital radio closures and comes less than a month after Channel 4 pulled out of its planned digital radio venture with 4 Digital Group (see Channel 4 Abandons Digital Radio Venture).

Digital radio has continued to increase its listening figures despite the commercial sector’s struggle to make the new platform pay.

The latest RAJAR figures show that listening to the radio via a digital platform and digital listening hours were up for the period.

DAB radio now has an 11.3% share of listening on digital platforms, up from 8.6% in Q3 2007, while its weekly reach has increased to 17.8% of all digital listeners from 15.3% in Q3 2007 (see Good Quarter For Digital Radio).

Bauer Advertising: www.baueradvertising.co.uk