‘Listening digitally in-car is the next big area to tackle’

Adam Bowie, head of strategy & planning at Absolute Radio, says it’s worth highlighting the fact that 42.5% of the population listen to at least some of their radio on a digital platform. An excellent result that we continue to see grow…

“This RAJAR was a really good one for commercial radio. As audiences reached an all time high for overall radio listening, commercial radio clawed back a significant portion of the BBC’s lead, with its share of listening reaching 43.7% – the best result for commercial radio in six years. I think that’s probably due to continued investment in strong programming and clear brand propositions from across the commercial sector.

At Absolute Radio we’ve just seen some of our best figures in ten years. As well as having our largest numbers since we re-branded, we’ve seen overall network figures achieve a ten year high in hours and a nine year high in reach.

And those increases have come across the board, with Absolute Radio gaining significant rises, as well as our newer digital brands. Of those, the standout achievement must be the performance of Absolute 80s. It’s reach and hours are now at all time highs for the station, making it bigger than long established digital stations like Planet Rock and Heat in terms of reach. Now it’s snapping at the heels of 1Xtra and even 6Music. Not bad for a service that’s still only 18 months old.

Christian O’Connell has also just had his best ever numbers – with more listeners than he’s had ever since he joined us in 2005. And coming only a month after he won the Arqiva Breakfast Show of the Year Award, he’s on fire!

At Absolute Radio, we make no secret that we’re fans of digital, so it was great to see that the BBC’s re-branding of Radio 7 as Radio 4 Extra has, with a few programming tweaks, and good deal of cross promotion, seen the service leap to become the biggest digital only radio service. As more people discover digital radio, they have more opportunity for them to also discover Absolute Radio’s brands.

Overall digital listening is up again to 26.9%, and while we’d like to see it higher than it already is, it’s also worth highlighting the fact that 42.5% of the population listen to at least some of their radio on a digital platform. That’s an excellent result that we continue to see grow.

A good proportion of that digital listening takes place at home, although we know from our own figures that mobile apps are now forming a really important sizeable chunk of that listening. Being able to listen to radio digitally in-car is the next big area to tackle, and it’s great to see retailers like Halfords really giving in-car digital radios a real push, with new devices coming on-stream all the time.”