Women’s Radio Viva Struggling

Viva, the London radio station aimed at women, which launched in July last year is in financial difficulties. This week three presenters and two full time staff plus a number of freelancers have been made redundant.

Jean Brogan, Head of Programming and Marketing at Golden Rose told MediaTel that the problems are due to poor reception. Since the launch of Viva, complaints have led to a survey, which revealed weaknesses in Central and East London. These problems will take months to sort, needing regulatory approval as well as technical solving, so in the mean time costs have to be cut, said Jean.

A new programming schedule has also been introduced. In a bid to improve the originality and creativity of the station, Viva plans to introduce ‘RadioLab’, two hours per day of pilot programming to allow new programmes from people new to radio. The aim is to create high quality programming, which attracts a predominantly female audience. According to Viva’s Rajar figures, for Q3 1995, it managed a weekly reach of 120,000 adults, or 1.2%. 79% of listeners were in the 25-44 age group, with the male:female ration being 46:54. Premier, the London Christian radio station which also recorded its first Rajar figures in Q3 managed a weekly reach of 210,000. Premier has since admitted financial problems and launched its own funding campaign, aiming to raise £500,000 from donations. Viva in fact fared only slightly bettern in terms of weekly reach than the minority London station Spectrum, which had a reach of 115,000.