RAJAR 1993 – 1st Quarter

The latest RAJAR figures released this weekend have reinforced the initial success achieved by Classic FM, with the station increasing its weekly reach from 9% to 10%. The data for January to March’93 shows the national station increasing its weekly audience from the 4.26m recorded in the last quarter of 1992 to 4.49m.

Commenting on the results Classic’s sales director Nigel Reeve told MediaTel “The indications are that our audience is coming partly from Radio 2 but overall more people have increased their listening due to the launch of Classic FM.” He also said the new figures prove the station is consolidating its audience and that the fact it is still growing shows that the first RAJAR results for September to December ’92 were not simply due to the promotion of the station’s launch.

On the whole the second RAJAR survey offers more favourable results than the much criticised inaugural survey released in January. The share of listening for all Independent Local Radio increased from 31.2% to 31.9% and share of listening for all BBC increased from 58.4% to 59.0%.

These increases appear to have been at the expense of Atlantic 252 whose share of listening dropped from 3.7% to 2.7%. The station’s weekly audience fell from 4.25m to 3.91m listeners.

Only the national and major London stations reported during this quarter. Among these was Capital Radio, whose FM service increased its weekly reach from 29% to 32%. This represents an extra 270,000 listeners. London station Jazz FM, which has undergone a revamp aimed at broadening its appeal, increased its audience from 530,000 to 670,000.

Classic’s increasing audience is not at the expense of Radio 3 whose weekly reach rose from 5% to 6%. Radio 4 also fared well with an audience increase of 350,000 to 9.19m. The results for Radio 1 and 2 were less encouraging, with the weekly reach for both stations falling by 1 percentage point to 35% and 21% respectively.