‘A big hats off to some of the specialists brands’
Charlie Yeates, associate director, Investment Trading at MediaCom, congratulates some of the specialist radio brands who offer niché and unique choices to both listeners and advertisers…
Another RAJAR, the usual twists and turns, but overall, some well-needed stability on the whole. Overall, the medium is in a very good way in terms listening and interaction.
Digital penetration continues to increase (but share of listening is not moving fast enough unfortunately). Hopefully Q1 2012 will see more of a spike after all those festive purchases are taken into account.
Radio listening via the TV is still ahead of ip / internet listening (although both went backwards in Q4), which is baffling considering Radioplayer’s success so far but it is equally encouraging to see that listeners are making use of radio’s platform versatility.
Digital listening growth seems to have stemmed from the BBC in the past quarter – 6 Music and 1 Extra make up two of the top three digital stations. It’s good to see a commercial station in the 1 million+ zone though, Bauer’s Smash Hits.
In terms of heritage brands, a very strong year all round for talkSPORT who seem to have poached listeners from FIVE LIVE. If executed correctly, a nice nod to investing in your programming can lead to attracting new listeners.
It is also good to see that Absolute have stabilised over the past few RAJAR periods with a 27% reach increase YoY to boot.
Capital Network and the Bauer Place and Passion portfolios have a nice, rosy picture to look back on in the past 12 months – strong steady growth across the year.
There’s also a big hats off to some of the specialists brands – Kismat, LBC, Heat, Jazz, Sunrise, Q & Planet Rock who continue to offer those niché and unique choices to both listeners and advertisers.
And finally, although a quiet quarter this time around, well done to GMG who have had a fantastic year with combined growth of 7.2% across its Smooth and Real brands. GMG are just short of 6 million weekly listeners (bigger than Classic) – a real success story considering that this includes a national launch in a tough market, with big stations (and marketing budgets) to contend with.