‘Investment in talent, rights & social media is paying dividends’
Marnie Virdee, head of research & sales operations at talkSPORT, on the station’s strategy and success…
Being ‘Station of the Year’ and delivering over 3.2 million listeners is a tough act to follow but in the latest RAJAR’s talkSPORT has continued to deliver exceptional results. It’s the third consecutive quarter where the station has surpassed the 3 million mark, which considering only 12 months ago it had 2.5 million listeners, is a massive achievement.
Within the Q2 RAJAR period around 6 weeks are outside of the football season and that is always a challenge for the station. But what is interesting is that we know from our own listening data that June has been a record month and this is backed up by our website audience, which has grown enormously of late and was also at a record high for June. What this indicates is that we have enough content outside of live commentary to keep listeners interested
Content is king
For a speech based station content has to be king, whenever our presenters speak it has to be interesting – that is the challenge. But there is evidence that it’s working, and the increased investment in sporting rights and on air talent has been key to this.
The next 12 months are huge challenge for the station as we go into what is arguably the biggest season ever. In a weeks time the Premier League returns; in September we have the Rugby World Cup (which we have exclusive radio rights for); then next summer there are the Euro 2012 finals and of course the small matter of the Olympics.
The investment in talent like Richard Keys and Andy Gray have never been more important – in addition to delivering strong radio content they have the additional responsibility of engaging with the digital world.
It’s no coincidence that our increased presence within the social media world has helped to engage with our current listener base. But having a presence alone isn’t enough if in the long term you want to drive listeners to the station.
As an opinionated sports station we have always had something to debate, but what we can do is debate across platforms and through a variety of means. talkSPORT now has the largest Twitter following in commercial radio , the second highest in all radio and the reason for this is primarily because were utilising our content better than ever with the presenters having fully embraced the concept.
The station format lends itself well to social media and its proving hugely useful in extending our reach and brand outside of the radio listener landscape. Our listenership has increased by 700,000 in 12 months while our website traffic is up 2.2 million (unique visitors) during the same period so it gives a clear indication how the two are working hand in hand.
With the year we have coming up we hope that the strong foundations that have been laid (particularly since the World Cup) puts the station in a primary position to deliver an even bigger audience and get all those new listeners to continue listening, and listening for longer.