Digital Is Just One Platform... We Have Others

Michael Hedges October 24, 2014 Follow on Twitter

Broadcasters have found many surprises in the digital dividend. Some are nice, others not quite. Audiences migrate with ease from one platform to another, looking for something new and different or old favorites. One trend suggests platform carries significant weight in brand choice and, of course, they keep changing.

UK radio listening was slightly lower year on year reported RAJAR’s audience estimates. Third quarter (Q3) results reflected the fairly normal summer holiday plus September drop in weekly reach, dropping off 0.9% against the previous quarter (Q2 2014) and 0.1% against the same quarter last year. Over the last several years summertime changes in listener behavior has been good for commercial broadcasters needing October release figures for end-of-year pitches to media buyers, not so good for the BBC. Commercial radio broadcasters typically get nailed during the winter quarter and the BBC benefits.

This time, it’s a tad different. Total reach share for BBC channels in the national audience estimates bumped up to 53.6% from 53.4% one year on. National channels on any platform were up to 45.7% reach share, from 45.3%, and the aggregate reach share for BBC local stations was lower at 7.8%, from 8.1%.

Commercial radio’s total reach share was off in the national survey, 43.7% from 43.9% year on year. The aggregate reach share for national and quasi-national commercial stations was up ever so slightly to 13.6% from 13.5% and ever so noticeably lower for local commercial stations, 30.1% from 30.5%. Market and brand consolidation continue apace among UK commercial broadcasters, yielding the Real Radio and Choice Radio offerings over the last year or so to the Heart and Capital quasi-national brands.

The ‘gap’ between BBC and commercial radio reach share estimates closed to 9.9%; happens every summer. The ever-mysterious “other” listening rose to 2.8% from 2.6% and seems to be increasing.

The major national BBC channels were, generally, up a bit in the national survey. BBC Radio 2 holds it’s lead with 17.0% reach share, up from 16.9% year on year, but conspicuously lower than each of the last three quarterly audience estimates. News-talk Radio 4 was again in second place nationally with 11.9% reach share, up from 11.8%. And the much-maligned Radio 1 kept third spot, up to 6.9% reach share from 6.6% one year on.

“As Radio 1 continues to lead the industry in becoming a multi-platform youth brand, which recently passed 1.6 million YouTube subscribers, these figures only tell part of the story,” said channel controller Ben Cooper to BBC News (October 23). “I'm very pleased that in the traditionally difficult summer quarter, the Radio 1 Breakfast Show has 240,000 new listeners in the year.”

Mr. Cooper is quite sensitive about the bantering about of audience estimates. “But these days what is success? Is it trending worldwide or going viral? And in terms of radio, is it still about how many people you reach or the number of hours they listen for? I want BBC Radio 1 to be the R&D of audience measurement in a digital age, to challenge old perceptions and to work out what success actually means for a radio station in 2014 and beyond,” he offered to huffingtonpost.co.uk (October 15). “What we need to avoid, is being criticized for failing by using old and outdated ways of judging success in a digital disrupted world. Are we using the best measurements?”

BBC Radio 1 tied Kiss 100 FM for 6th spot in the London survey, 4.5% reach share, up from 4.4%. Radio 4, as usual, topped the London rankings, 15.0% from 13.9% year on year. Radio 2 is again number 2, 11.3% reach share, down from 11.7%.

The quasi-national Heart radio brand, owned by Global Radio, held 4th place in the national audience estimates. It’s reach share jumped to 6.6% from 4.9% year on year after the company ditched the Real Radio brand and, more or less, migrated the Heart brand to those FM frequencies. Another one of Global Radio’s quasi-national brands, Capital, placed 5th nationally with 3.9% reach share, down from 4.3% one year on.

The Capital London franchise, however, moved up to 3rd place in the London survey, 5.3% reach share from 4.9% year on year. LBC 97.3 and Magic 105.4 tied for 4th at 5.1%, LBC down from 5.3% and Magic down from 6.0%. Kiss 100 dropped to 4.5% reach share and 6th place from 4.9%.

Sports branded channels had a reasonably good summer. All-sports BBC Five Live remained in 6th spot nationally with 3.8% reach share, up a tad. Digital-only Five Extra dropped year on year. National commercial channel TalkSport bumped up to 2.2% reach share from 2.0%.

Global Radio’s national channel and chief money-spinner Classic FM placed 7th in the national audience estimates, 3.6% reach share, up from 3.4% year on year. Smooth Radio, also owned by Global Radio, rose to 3.5% reach share from 2.3% after the company’s Gold brand was scuttled and FM frequencies redistributed. Bauer Media’s Absolute Radio brand also saw a big jump in the national survey, 2.7% reach share from 1.2% one year on. The Absolute Radio brand is a mix of line-extensions and platforms, the Absolute 80s digital channel seeming to drive the increases.

As usual, the future of digital radio broadcasting in the UK is being measured by the present. Digital platform listening to BBC channels rose to 38.4% reach share from 36.6% year on year, meaning AM/MW and FM listening reach has dropped to 56.5%. Commercial channels and stations engage slightly fewer digital listeners, 36.5% reach share, up from 33.9%. The DAB platform provides the biggest part of digital radio dividend; 27.9% for BBC channels and 20.8% for commercial broadcasters.

At the end of September regulator OFCOM published its annual report on the state of digital radio, noting the continued slowdown in DAB receiver sales. Neither OFCOM nor Culture and Media Minister Ed Vaizey see much demand for a formal transition from analogue (FM) to digital (DAB). The lower bit-rate DAB technology was adopted early in the development cycle and, with just under half those surveyed saying they own a DAB receiver, there’s little interest, political or commercial, in moving to the newer, faster and not downwardly compatible DAB+ technology. That in mind – as well as the constant drumbeat of ‘the future is digital’ – plans to adapt available digital technologies to mobile platforms for radio broadcasting is gaining traction.

And so the digital radio market leader in the UK is the BBC’s 6Music, the alternative music channel once threatened with closure. The channels reach share in the recent RAJAR audience estimates is 1.8%, roughly 1.9 million listeners, up from 1.6% year on year. A large cast of show hosts and producers, Gen X music and a terminally hip attitude make 6Music a force to reckoned with and one commercial competitors cannot duplicate.

So cool is 6Music Labour Party MP Tom Watson, the same guy who chased Rupert and James Murdoch around a hearing room, suggested swapping the FM frequencies of arts and classical music channel BBC Radio 3.  “It does strike me if the Radio 3 audience continues to diminish and 6 Music continues to grow its audience, the BBC should seriously consider it, they must put it on their agenda,” he told the annual Radio Festival, quoted by the Guardian (October 16). Radio 3’s audience dropped slightly in the recent RAJAR national audience estimates, 1.2% reach share from 1.3% year on year.

That slight jab at Radio 3 followed an admission by Conservative Party Minister Vaizey at the Radio Festival of a preference for the “absolutely brilliant, accessible” Classic FM, which offers well-known highlights from classical music works, and suggested Radio 3 would “attract more listeners” on the digital platform. In coming Radio 3 controller Alan Davey, currently Arts Council England chief executive, said the channel will continue to offer “complex culture.” In London, where the elite meet sweet, Classic FM’s reach share rose to 4.3% from 3.5% year on year while BBC Radio 3 was unchanged at 1.5%.

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