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Talk Radio Sale

Talk Radio Sale

Bids for Talk Radio are believed to be around the £20 million mark; well below the £60 million or so which owners CLT-ufa were hoping for. So far it is understood that only Kelvin MacKenzie and the management team at Talk have submitted bids to Luxembourg-based CLT (see CLT-ufa Receives Bids For Talk).

Talk Radio has gained little in terms of overall listenership in the last three years – RAJAR figures for Adults remain steady. It is, however, gaining female listeners – up from a weekly reach for Women of 664,000 in quarter 1 1995 to 1.15 million in quarter 1 1998.

  Talk Radio BBC Radio 4 News Direct LBC BBC Radio 5
  (nc) (np) (Lc) (Lc) (np)
All Adults (Total wkly hours) 14,099 87,859 1,496 5,387 33,160
           
% share * % share * % share * % share * % share *
           
All Men 15+ 53.7 46.2 74.2 39.9 73.5
All Women 15+ 46.3 53.8 25.8 60.1 26.5
ABC1 Men 17.0 34.7 51.3 19.1 42.0
ABC1 Women 18.3 41.9 15.5 24.2 17.7
All Housewives 54.8 63.1 42.4 63.9 41.0
n – national c – commercial p – public L – London

Source: RAJAR

ABC1s account for only 35% of Talk’s share of hours listened – well below the comparative speech stations. News Direct, for example, manages to combine a solid proportion of housewife listening with a strong ABC1 share.

Talk Radio weekly reach (‘000s)                          
Demographic Q1 1995 Q2 1995 Q3 1995 Q4 1995 Q1 1996 Q2 1996 Q3 1996 Q4 1996 Q1 1997 Q2 1997 Q3 1997 Q4 1997 Q1 1998
ABC1 Adults 703 964 1,101 1,021 1,192 1,131 1,006 1,087 735 933 1,050 1,134 1,004
All Adults 1,553 2,077 2,280 1,993 2,117 2,282 2,134 2,338 1,794 2,162 2,157 2,351 2,267
All Men 15+ 888 1,129 1,161 1,115 1,060 1,124 1,083 1,150 924 1,135 1,145 1,230 1,119
All Women 15+ 664 948 1,119 878 1,058 1,158 1,050 1,188 871 1,026 1,012 1,120 1,149
Source: RAJAR

It remains to be seen whether CLT-ufa will accept one of the bids it has received for Talk or whether it will bide its time awaiting a higher offer. US group Jacor Communications is believed to have expressed an interest as has London News Radio. However, it appears that neither of these has made a formal bid so far.

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