Rajar Q2: Industry reaction

Andy Haylett, director, Ipsos MediaCT.

Recently, I’ve been thinking of investing in a new car. I’ve only ever bought one, quite a few years ago now, and while it still works, it’s just getting a bit tatty and really, it would be nice to upgrade. The problem is though I don’t really know much about cars. So, like a good researcher, I decided to have a look around to gather as much information as possible and make an informed decision on that basis.

Naturally, in my line of work, a priority is to have access to a DAB radio which my current car does not. The CD player it does have just doesn’t cover my needs in this day and age. Earlier in the year I’d read various reports of new car manufacturers coming on board and now fitting digital radios to their fleet.

In fact the rate of growth looks pretty impressive – it was widely reported that by April 2014, 55% of new cars came with DAB installed as standard. This compares to just over 37% in the previous year.

While at this point it may not be at the lofty levels that were once targeted, this growth is showing that the car industry is now well and truly on board with the UK’s digital plans.

The next challenge though is getting these cars on the road with people using their DAB and consuming digital radio, then we can start to see these numbers filter into the listening figures.

The current figures, Quarter 2 2014, which were released by Rajar today, show a reasonable amount of DAB listening in-car (the precise RAJAR definition is ‘Car/Van/Lorry’).

It’s true that the majority – 88% – of all in-vehicle hours comes on an AM or FM platform, but as I’m neatly proving, changing a car, for most people at least, is not a particularly frequent event. Reducing that dominance is not going to happen overnight.

Overall this quarter, 11% of all in-car hours are consumed via DAB which is an increase on the previous quarter, and year. If the number of enabled cars has increased, this figure should gather pace as they hit the road.

It’s probably worth mentioning at this point that there is a little online/app listening in car too, accounting for around 1% of all hours. There may be more progress to come in this area too if the likes of RadioPlayer continue to work on the connected car and develop links with manufacturers. This also relies on the continued roll-out of stronger and more consistent mobile internet connections.

Rajar also shows there is an appetite for digital radio in general. While the overall level of digital listening is comparable with quarter 1 – 51% reach and 37% of hours recorded on a digital platform – at an individual station level there are some interesting numbers.

One result that has been threatening to happen for a while now is that BBC 6 Music has overtaken BBC Radio 3 in terms of number of listeners, albeit by a small margin (1.891m vs 1.884m, respectively). 6 Music has been the standard bearer for digital only stations for a few years now and to finally overhaul an established station such as Radio 3 is quite a feat.

In the commercial sector, most notably some of Bauer’s digital only Absolute stations have continued to build on their listener base – Absolute 80s is now established as a 1 million-plus listener station.

Heat and Kerrang (in its new configuration) are the pick of the other commercial digital only stations, starting to nudge towards 1 million listeners.

Slowly but surely the number of DAB enabled cars on the road will increase. As it does, we can reasonably expect to see in-vehicle digital listening continuing to grow. Combine this with some excellent digital only radio and this is starting to look like an area to keep an eye on.

I’m doing what I can to contribute to this, and a lot of the radio I listen to is digital – I just need to decide which car I should use to house my new DAB radio.

Agency view: Michael Williamson, head of radio at Carat UK

Radio listening continues to thrive with the latest Q2 figures revealing that 90% of the adult UK population have tuned into radio each week. Capital FM is back to No.1 for reach in London and retains London’s top breakfast show.

The Summertime Ball’s star studded line up no doubt contributed to the strong listener increase of 15% on Q1 figures. The World Cup has driven up listening figures on TalkSPORT, with the actual coverage up 35% compared to the 2010 coverage.

The recent rebrand on Smooth Radio including the transition of some Gold Stations has helped it grow 7% to bring it close to Kiss’ 4th place of commercial radio brands.

Bauer achieved its highest ever digital listening hours with 50.8% of their total listening hours, way ahead of the 26.8% industry average, boasting Absolute 80s as the number one commercial digital station along with KISSTORY and Heat Radio delivering their highest ever reach. The results of Bauer & Absolute’s investment into digital stations and digital platforms is clear to see.

An increasingly important platform is mobiles and tablets. There was a considerable rise in listening via these platforms this quarter, up 51% year on year. This has contributed to the decline in share of traditional analogue listening, now at 56.6% overall, but down to 50% for in home listening.

With online and mobile listening on the up and a 2nd DAB multiplex set to launch, digital radio is starting to make a big mark on the media landscape.