Q4 Rajar Summary – Local Commercial Stations
Although the Q4 Rajar results have shown an overall increase in radio listening, there have been some notable successes and failures in the local commercial stations market.
A particular success in terms of average weekly reach (‘000s) was Classic Gold 1431/1485 which increased its weekly reach by 33.3% from 36,000 to 48,000 year on year. The greatest increase was achieved by South Coast Radio which gained an enormous 55.7% weekly reach, from 79,000 to 123,000. Other impressive performances came from 963 Liberty which increased weekly reach by 42.9% to 140,000, and News Direct 97.3FM which managed a 48.5% rise taking its average weekly reach from 297,000 to 441,000.
The failures were spectacularly led by RTL Country 1035AM (in the same week Country Music Television closed) which lost 30.3% of its average weekly reach taking it down from 264,000 to 184,000. Also Classic Gold 1530/1278 was down to a weekly reach of 83,000, down 30.8% from 120,000 for Q4 1996.
The biggest losers and gainers are shown in the chart below.
Of the larger commercial stations Classic FM gained a 4.1% weekly reach taking its reach to just under 5 million. Atlantic 252 lost 8.6%, down to a weekly reach of 3.3 million. Virgin Radio AM increased its weekly reach by 13.2% and Virgin 105.8FM gained 3.5% taking their average weekly reach to 3.3 million and 876,000 respectively. Chris Evans’ Virgin breakfast show also achieved a 41% increase in listeners (see earlier Q4 RAJAR Summary – Breakfast Listening story). Capital 95.8FM remained pretty much stable, losing only 1% of weekly reach, as did Capital Gold 1548AM losing 2%.
A look at the performance of the stations in the major sales houses shows that Opus (GWR) had the lowest proportion of stations losing weekly reach, its particular success being Classic Gold 1431/1485 as mentioned. Wyvern FM also did well for Opus gaining 21.6% weekly reach, up from 88,000 to 107,000. Its biggest loss came from Classic Gold 1530/1278.
Emap stations didn’t do particularly well with only Kiss 100FM and TFM showing a significant increase in reach: up 16.4% and 9.7% respectively. Emap Radio’s biggest loser was Touch Radio, whose weekly reach was down 27.7% from 141,000 to 102,000.
Brighton was the ground for gaining listeners for Capital Advertising with South Coast Radio (Brighton/Eastbourne/Hastings) and Southern FM (Brighton/Eastbourne/Hastings) gaining 55.7% and 13.8% weekly reach respectively.
Katz Radio Sales gained the most listeners via Guildford area 96.4 The Eagle which saw weekly reach rise from 59,000 to 80,000, a rise of 35.6%. One of the biggest losses for a station sold by Katz was RTL Country 1035AM as mentioned earlier. The data breakdown for weekly reach and other listener statistics can be accessed by subscribers in the Radio database from the drop-down box at the top of the screen.