It's been a busy day for me, finding time in amongst appointments, shopping and other day to day activities to look over the RAJARs. But this was one of the things that I was most interested in. What would I make of the latest results.
BBC Radio Cornwall saw an increase in listenership, on both quarter by quarter and year to year. Up 6,000 on the year, and up 23,000 on the previous quarter to 175,000. Share also rose on the quarter, up from 16.1% to 17.5%, and even though in terms of total hours, there's over 100,000 more hours recorded this year than last, somehow, that 17.5% share this year is down from last year's 18.7%. Can't figure that one out.
BBC Radio Devon also saw an increase in listenership, up 16,000 on the year and up 20,000 on the quarter to 245,000. On share, we have a strange quirk, being up from 10.0% share on the last quarter, and down from 13.6% last year, to right between the two, 11.8%. Rarely do stats come out that well.
Heart South West, in the first quarter where we can make a legitimate quarter to quarter comparison, is up from 394,000 to 408,000, an increase of 14,000. Share however was unchanged at 9.8%. This is in stark contrast though to the network figures, which are down. Heart have lost 255,000 listeners in the last year, and 132,000 listeners in the last quarter. Their share has dropped from 5.0% to 4.8%, and total hours in the last year has gone down by over 2 million, and in the last quarter by over a million. It seems that Heart South West is gaining listeners seemingly because it is not local radio, but a quirky hybrid of local and national that is relatively new to some parts of the region, and is piqueing the interest of listeners. But Heart as a network is not doing so well.
This is also the first quarter where we can make a legitimate quarter to quarter comparison for Radio Plymouth. On reach, they have gained an extra 1,000 listeners, going from 37,000 to 38,000. However, the change of breakfast presenter seems to have hurt the station quite significantly. Total hours dropped from 271,000 to 219,000. Share was also down, from 4.9% to 3.9%. How did that drop occur. Average hours per listener went down, quite sharply, from 7.3 hours per week, to 5.8 hours. It seems that work is needed to get people listening longer, because that kind of drop in just 3 months, really hurts a station like Radio Plymouth.
Radio Exe by contrast has had a more positive quarter. Like Radio Plymouth, their reach went up by 1,000. But they also saw an increase in Total Hours, from 176,000 to 196,000; and an increase in share, from 4.0% to 4.6%. They too made changes early in the year, and these changes seem to be paying off, at the moment.
Palm FM can't seem to win at the moment. They've lost 2,000 listeners in the last quarter, down to 35,000; and their share is down from 4.7% to 4.4%. They've been in flux for most of the past two quarters though, and it's only recently that things have settled down again, with a new breakfast show host. Hopefully, by Q3, we will see whether these changes are paying off for Palm.
Gold Devon saw a positive quarter, going up from 36,000 listeners to 42,000, and increasing their share from 1.3& to 1.6%. However, they have been stuck in a small range, and need to break out of it.
Pirate FM had a dire quarter in Q4 2012, and Q1 2013 doesn't look any better. They've lost 1,000 listeners, down to 152,000. Total Hours down from 1,418,000 to 1,371,000 and share down from 11.8% to 11.2%. The problem is quite easily indentifiable. Outside of breakfast, content has been cut right back to the bare bones, and they are doing mostly music and imaging. In other words, they are trying to out-Heart Heart South West. You don't win a battle by trying to sound exactly like your competition. You win a battle by being different from yoour competition, different enough to highlight their weakness and portray them as your strengths.
Overall, it seems that the three Ps, Pirate, Palm and Plymouth, need to do a lot of work to recover lost ground. The BBC and Heart are gaining at their expense.
Showing posts with label Palm FM. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Palm FM. Show all posts
Thursday, 16 May 2013
Thursday, 31 January 2013
Q4 2012 RAJARs: 6Music steals the spotlight
Well, there is no doubt in my view about what the headline is from the latest RAJARs. 6Music is definitely a growing station. The station reached almost 1.9 million listeners, a record breaking performance, especially when you consider it broadcasts only on digital radio. The performance can really be put down to things, having the right presenters in the right slots, and the intelligent approach to music that 6Music uses. Many other stations could learn a lot from 6Music and allow a few tracks on the playlists that are less familiar, but often just as good as the more familiar ones.
On the local side, the spotlight really falls on 3 stations. Radio Exe, who reduced their TSA by over 100,000; Palm FM, and Radio Plymouth, who recieved their first official ratings in this quarter. All of these stations and Pirate FM as well, are up against the newly formed monolith that is Heart South West, who are reporting combined numbers for the first time rather than separate numbers for Cornwall and Devon.
Heart South West reported 394,000 listeners. The best we can tell, that is actually an increase on the quarter and a small increase on the year. The station was listened to for 8.1 hours per listener per week, whihc is a reasonable figure. So how do their competition measure up?
Let's start with Radio Exe, whose TSA figure is basically now the city of Exeter and not a lot more. The reach does not look good at just 21,000 listeners, down from 25,000 the previous quarter. However, in the smaller TSA, that now represents 11% of the TSA, rather than the 9% or so last quarter. Average Hours per week went up rto 8.3 from 7.4, but that was not enough to stop the total hours dropping from 183k to 176k. This does mean that in the smaller TSA, the share went up to 4% from 2.8%. A lot of this feels like cosmetic changes really rather than anything solid.
However, at the beginning of 2013, they made some fairly significant changes to their schedule. Matt Young left the station, and Chris Dinnis took over a shortened drivetime from 2pm til 6pm. Nino Ferreto, who at one time had been the breakfast presenter on Radio Exe in it's previous identity of Exeter FM, has come back and taken over the daytime slot between 10am and 2pm. Ashley Geary's Live and Local expands and becomes a regular show every weeknight between 6pm and 8pm. Kellow's Bootlaces and The Pow Wow, two shows about Exeter's local football and rugby teams take the 8pm slots for an hour on Mondays and Thursdays respectively, with Gary King's Totally 90s getting an airing on Fridays at 8pm. Radio Exe is obviously making a play at being the home of local music and sport, though that seems a little strange when the saturday afternoon show, when both local teams are in action, is not particularly sport focused. On the local music side, they are in direct competition there with local community radio station Phonic FM, which has actually been around longer than Radio Exe, by all of 3 days. It will be interesting to see if Radio Exe's strategy actually pays off for them. The next set of RAJARs for them will be very important, as it will be the first test of how the revised schedule is actually working for them.
For Palm FM, the problem was much simpler in understanding, stop a downward trend that had been developing over the past 18 months or so, and it looks like they might have done that. 37,000 listeners is up 3,000 on the quarter and level for the year, so it looks like some stability may have returned to Palm FM. Or has it? The share and hours figures don't read as well as the reach figure does. The share has dropped to 4.7%, the lowest level since 2008, and way down from a peak of 7.2% in Q4 2010. At only 7 hours per listener per week, the total hours figure has dropped to 261k, the lowest level since 2009 and down from the peak of 340k in Q3 2010.
Much like Radio Exe, Palm FM has also made some changes in 2013, with John Hogarth leaving the role of Programme Controller to concentrate on Breakfast, and Jon White, formerly Radio Plymouth's Breakfast Show host, replacing Hogie as Programme Controller and also replacing Dave Gould as host of the Interactive Afternoon. Dave Gould also seems to have left Palm FM, as Allen Fleckney has taken over Dave's old Sunday Afternoon slot. Again, much like Radio Exe, the Q1 2013 numbers will be very interesting to watch.
For Radio Plymouth, the problem has been not knowing how many people were listening. Now, with their first official RAJARs, they know. 37,000 listeners, same number as Palm FM. 7.3 hours per listener per week, 271k total hours and a 4.9% share are respectable numbers and a good starting point. However, these numbers were during Jon White's time on the Breakfast show. Jon is now Palm FM Programme Controller, so Chris Batchelor has taken over the Breakfast show, and it will be interesting to see whether the movement in the numbers in Q1 2013 will be up or down.
For Pirate FM, the last quarter saw a big drop in reach down to 153,000 and a very low 11.8% share, their worst performance that I can verify going back to 1999. Total Hours dropped below 1.5 million, the worst performance since Q4 2008. Radio Cornwall saw a small drop down to 152,000 listeners and 16.1% share, down from 154,000 and 16.3% respectively, whilst Radio Devon recovered some ground, rising to 225,000 listeners and 10% share, from 203,000 listeners and 8.9% share. But all these stations have some serious opposition already from community radio stations, and in 2013, there will be many more launches across Cornwall and Devon, meaning that more stations will be competing for listeners attention.
In Cornwall, there's already Radio Scilly, The Source FM and Radio St Austell Bay broadcasting on FM, with Penwith Radio, Redruth Radio, CHBN Radio and The Hub all due to launch this year. In Devon, the competition from community radio already exists with Soundart Radio in Totnes and Phonic FM in Exeter on FM, and The Voice, already broadcasting across North Devon, Exeter and Torbay on DAB, even though the editorial area is only North Devon. The Voice are due to add FM distribution in North Devon this year, and will be joined by Bay FM in Exmouth, Plymouth Community Radio, Q-mmunity Radio in Crediton and Totnes FM in Totnes. All these stations are taking small chunks of the audience now, and these chunks are getting slowly bigger, and soon there will be more chunks being taken out of the audience pie. It will be interesting to see just how the more established stations respond.
On the local side, the spotlight really falls on 3 stations. Radio Exe, who reduced their TSA by over 100,000; Palm FM, and Radio Plymouth, who recieved their first official ratings in this quarter. All of these stations and Pirate FM as well, are up against the newly formed monolith that is Heart South West, who are reporting combined numbers for the first time rather than separate numbers for Cornwall and Devon.
Heart South West reported 394,000 listeners. The best we can tell, that is actually an increase on the quarter and a small increase on the year. The station was listened to for 8.1 hours per listener per week, whihc is a reasonable figure. So how do their competition measure up?
Let's start with Radio Exe, whose TSA figure is basically now the city of Exeter and not a lot more. The reach does not look good at just 21,000 listeners, down from 25,000 the previous quarter. However, in the smaller TSA, that now represents 11% of the TSA, rather than the 9% or so last quarter. Average Hours per week went up rto 8.3 from 7.4, but that was not enough to stop the total hours dropping from 183k to 176k. This does mean that in the smaller TSA, the share went up to 4% from 2.8%. A lot of this feels like cosmetic changes really rather than anything solid.
However, at the beginning of 2013, they made some fairly significant changes to their schedule. Matt Young left the station, and Chris Dinnis took over a shortened drivetime from 2pm til 6pm. Nino Ferreto, who at one time had been the breakfast presenter on Radio Exe in it's previous identity of Exeter FM, has come back and taken over the daytime slot between 10am and 2pm. Ashley Geary's Live and Local expands and becomes a regular show every weeknight between 6pm and 8pm. Kellow's Bootlaces and The Pow Wow, two shows about Exeter's local football and rugby teams take the 8pm slots for an hour on Mondays and Thursdays respectively, with Gary King's Totally 90s getting an airing on Fridays at 8pm. Radio Exe is obviously making a play at being the home of local music and sport, though that seems a little strange when the saturday afternoon show, when both local teams are in action, is not particularly sport focused. On the local music side, they are in direct competition there with local community radio station Phonic FM, which has actually been around longer than Radio Exe, by all of 3 days. It will be interesting to see if Radio Exe's strategy actually pays off for them. The next set of RAJARs for them will be very important, as it will be the first test of how the revised schedule is actually working for them.
For Palm FM, the problem was much simpler in understanding, stop a downward trend that had been developing over the past 18 months or so, and it looks like they might have done that. 37,000 listeners is up 3,000 on the quarter and level for the year, so it looks like some stability may have returned to Palm FM. Or has it? The share and hours figures don't read as well as the reach figure does. The share has dropped to 4.7%, the lowest level since 2008, and way down from a peak of 7.2% in Q4 2010. At only 7 hours per listener per week, the total hours figure has dropped to 261k, the lowest level since 2009 and down from the peak of 340k in Q3 2010.
Much like Radio Exe, Palm FM has also made some changes in 2013, with John Hogarth leaving the role of Programme Controller to concentrate on Breakfast, and Jon White, formerly Radio Plymouth's Breakfast Show host, replacing Hogie as Programme Controller and also replacing Dave Gould as host of the Interactive Afternoon. Dave Gould also seems to have left Palm FM, as Allen Fleckney has taken over Dave's old Sunday Afternoon slot. Again, much like Radio Exe, the Q1 2013 numbers will be very interesting to watch.
For Radio Plymouth, the problem has been not knowing how many people were listening. Now, with their first official RAJARs, they know. 37,000 listeners, same number as Palm FM. 7.3 hours per listener per week, 271k total hours and a 4.9% share are respectable numbers and a good starting point. However, these numbers were during Jon White's time on the Breakfast show. Jon is now Palm FM Programme Controller, so Chris Batchelor has taken over the Breakfast show, and it will be interesting to see whether the movement in the numbers in Q1 2013 will be up or down.
For Pirate FM, the last quarter saw a big drop in reach down to 153,000 and a very low 11.8% share, their worst performance that I can verify going back to 1999. Total Hours dropped below 1.5 million, the worst performance since Q4 2008. Radio Cornwall saw a small drop down to 152,000 listeners and 16.1% share, down from 154,000 and 16.3% respectively, whilst Radio Devon recovered some ground, rising to 225,000 listeners and 10% share, from 203,000 listeners and 8.9% share. But all these stations have some serious opposition already from community radio stations, and in 2013, there will be many more launches across Cornwall and Devon, meaning that more stations will be competing for listeners attention.
In Cornwall, there's already Radio Scilly, The Source FM and Radio St Austell Bay broadcasting on FM, with Penwith Radio, Redruth Radio, CHBN Radio and The Hub all due to launch this year. In Devon, the competition from community radio already exists with Soundart Radio in Totnes and Phonic FM in Exeter on FM, and The Voice, already broadcasting across North Devon, Exeter and Torbay on DAB, even though the editorial area is only North Devon. The Voice are due to add FM distribution in North Devon this year, and will be joined by Bay FM in Exmouth, Plymouth Community Radio, Q-mmunity Radio in Crediton and Totnes FM in Totnes. All these stations are taking small chunks of the audience now, and these chunks are getting slowly bigger, and soon there will be more chunks being taken out of the audience pie. It will be interesting to see just how the more established stations respond.
Thursday, 25 October 2012
Q3 2012 RAJARs: The troubles deepen
Since Midnight, the RAJAR figures for the thirdf quarter of 2012 have been made public, and it has to be said, at first impressions, the figures don't look good for the health of radio. None of the sectors saw any gain in hours on the last quarter, and local commercial radio has continued a steady downward trend that has been ongoing, since 1999. In terms of reach, BBC radio saw a very minor gain, whilst commercial radio saw a very minor loss.
Both BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 2 saw drops in reach terms on the quarter, whilst Radio 3 and Radio 4 both saw reach gains. Radio 3's is it's traditional summer bump from the Proms, which always brings listeners to the station who may not normally listen at other times.
Interestingly, both 5 Live and 5 Live Sports Extra saw no Olympic bounce at all. In fact, both saw slight declines.
Of the BBC's DAB stations, only Asian Network was below 1 million. Both Radio 4 Extra and Radio 6 Music saw gains, whilst World Service held steady and 1Xtra saw a small decline.
On the national commercial radio side, Talksport saw it's reach climb above 3 million, Classic FM saw a slight decline, whilst Absolute Radio saw a major decline overall, down over 200,000 listeners on reach to just above 1.5 million listeners. However, Absolute 80's the group flagship digital station, saw an increase, as did Absolute 90s.
Global Radio can't be too happy with their brands overall. Only Xfm saw gains in both reach and hours, LBC saw a gain in reach, but as with a lot of stations that see gains in reach, LBC saw a drop in both hours and share. All the other brands, Heart, Gold, Capital, Choice, Real and Smooth, all of them saw drops in both reach and hours overall. Within those general figures there are some incredible strange variations, some of which this time are more unusual than normal.
Looking deeper, into the individual stations, there are some interesting stories, but the one that stands out, and for very much the wrong reason, is Gold Devon. If you were to look at the year to year figures, you'd ask what the issue was. In the past year has gained 3,000 listeners, 30,000 hours and 0.2% share. Unfortunately those figures do not reveal the whole story about Gold Devon. In early 2012, the Exeter and Torbay local DAB multiplex arrived in North Devon, which increased the availability of Gold Devon into an area where it had never been available on AM before. Between Q3 2011 and Q1 2012, Gold Devon's reach almost doubled from 28,000 to 52,000. Their hours more than doubled from 271k to 605K, and their share more than doubled from 1.1% to 2.6%. Things were looking quite good for Gold Devon at this point.
However, that changed in April with the arrival on DAB of North Devon based community radio station, The Voice. The Voice had long lobbied to be allowed to broadcast to North Devon after the almagamation of Lantern FM, into what eventually became Heart Devon. They had been broadcasting a 28 day FM RSL and during that RSL, they agreed a deal with NOW Digital, to broadcast on DAB as well full time on the multiplex that had not long arrived in North Devon. They launched on DAB in April, broadcasting not just to North Devon, but also to Exeter and Torbay. The net result: Gold Devon got hammered. They lost about 40% of their reach, dropping from 52,000 to 31,000. Their hours have dropped by a little more than half, down from 605k to 301k, and their share halved from 2.6% to 1.3%
In the past year, Gold Devon has been on a huge rollercoaster, and we still don't yet know where this rollercoaster will end. There is still a possibility that Gold Devon could drop even more listeners. At one time, Gold Plymouth had just 7,000 listeners, and the Plymouth area is the only area in Devon now where Gold broadcasts on both AM and DAB. The fact that Gold's local advertising has to be sold together with Heart in Devon, rather than separately, suggests that Gold Devon may not be profitable on its own, even with the fact that there is no local programming, and limited local content, sometimes as little as a 20 second weather forecast per hour.
Every station's figures fluctuate to some degree, but Gold Devon's figures are amongst some of the wildest swings I've ever witnessed.
In Devon and Cornwall, few stations are performing well. BBC Radio Cornwall is down 7,000 reach on the quarter, but is up 2,000 reach on the year. Over the year, Radio Cornwall has gained 42,000 hours, but the share has dropped 0.4%, mainly because the TSA figure is 4,000 more now than it was in Q3 2011. On the quarter, Radio Cornwall has gained 84,000 hours and 0.3% share, mainly due to the fact people are listening longer. 12.4 hours per week this quarter, compared with 11.3 last quarter.
BBC Radio Devon's reach was stable at 203,000, still down 56,000 listeners on the year, but the station saw a massive drop in listener hours. 9.5 hours per week this quarter compared with 11.4 hours last quarter and 10.7 hours a year ago. As a result of this, the total hours figure dropped below 2 million for the first time in a long time, if ever. I cannot recall nor can I find currently evidence that it has ever been that low. The share of listening dropped below 10% for the first time in a long time, if ever, in fact it dropped below 9%. Something has clearly gone awry at Radio Devon, and frankly without some in-depth investigation, I'm not sure what the answer is. It maybe that the cancellation of the separate Plymouth breakfast show has significantly hurt the station.
Whatever the problems are at BBC Radio Devon, Heart Devon has definitely benefited from them. Although down in the reach by 19,000 on last year, the station is up 17,000 on the previous quarter. Share is up by 1.2% on the previous quarter as well, and total hours was also up by 241,000, though that's still down 96,000 hours on last year. Sister station Heart Cornwall is also performing well, well above my own expectations. 69,000 listeners is up 1,000 on the quarter, down 1,000 on the year, so definitely holding steady there. However, Heart Cornwall is outperforming its predecessor, Atlantic FM in terms of holding on to listeners. Average Hours per week in up to 7.4 hours, a new high for the licence, beating Atlantic FM's previous best of 7.1 hours per week in Q1 2011. Both Heart Devon and Heart Cornwall are outperforming the network as a whole on Average Hours per week, with Heart Devon's 8.1 and Heart Cornwall's 7.4 beating the network's 7,2. However, all these figures are still on the low side of what I consider to be the mark to aim for, which is 10 hours a week and higher. However, none of these figures are remotely anywhere near the worst. Absolute 70's scores 3.1 hours per week, then The Hits scores 3.0 hours per week. Pulse 2 scores a paltry 2.8 hours per week, but that is beaten by Q, the worst performer of them all at just 2.7 hours per week. In terms of keeping them listening, Heart do okay.
The other story that I've been following with interest is Celador Radio, and more particularly, their soft AC brand, The Breeze. Figures for The Breeze have never been great, and even though the Hampshire version has increased their reach by 7,000 to 42,000; the South West version has slipped from 29,000 to 26,000. Even the recently rebranded Midwest Radio, which is now The Breeze, but still reports under the Midwest Radio name, has slipped from 37,000 to 35,000 listeners. Given the fact that The Breeze has been removed from the Bristol and Hampshire local multiplexes, the viability of the brand as a whole, as an FM only brand, is seriously called into question. Given that two other FM only stations in Devon have either lost listeners in the past quarter or not gained any listeners, the idea that any station only needs to be on FM these days, is starting to smell like a busted myth. Radio Exe did not gain any listeners in the last quarter, holding at just 25,000 reach. However, it did keep listeners for a bit longer, so hours and share were up. Palm FM on the other hand lost 3,000 listeners in the last quarter, and both hours and share were maginally lower. Back with Celador, until recently, Jack FM was the better performer. However, in the last quarter,, Jack Bristol saw a sharp decline in reach, from 116,000 to 92,000. However, hours and share both saw an increase on the previous quarter, but are still way down on last year. Jack Oxfordshire is seeing declines in reach, hours and share on the previous quarter. However, Jack South Coast is performing better on reach, hours and share.
Another story worth mentioning is Free Radio 80s, which replaced Gold in the West Midlands. In the Birmingham area, Free Radio 80's is outperforming what Gold used to achieve. 93,000 compared to 71,000. Even around the Coverntry area, performance is the same at 21,000. So right now, I'd call Free Radio 80s a success story so far.
So overall, what do the figures tell us? Well, non-music radio held itself together, better than music radio in the last quarter, and digital radio only stations seemed to perform better than FM only stations. Brand radio seemed to do poorly, but other stations also suffered. The Olympics were great for TV audiences, but those increased TV audiences meant radio lost out. Local commercial radio continued to trend downward, with little or no sign that stations are actively trying to reverse the trend. Radio needs to do something pretty drastic if they are going to attract the attention of younger listeners these days, and just being aural wallpaper, is not going to cut it any longer.
Both BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 2 saw drops in reach terms on the quarter, whilst Radio 3 and Radio 4 both saw reach gains. Radio 3's is it's traditional summer bump from the Proms, which always brings listeners to the station who may not normally listen at other times.
Interestingly, both 5 Live and 5 Live Sports Extra saw no Olympic bounce at all. In fact, both saw slight declines.
Of the BBC's DAB stations, only Asian Network was below 1 million. Both Radio 4 Extra and Radio 6 Music saw gains, whilst World Service held steady and 1Xtra saw a small decline.
On the national commercial radio side, Talksport saw it's reach climb above 3 million, Classic FM saw a slight decline, whilst Absolute Radio saw a major decline overall, down over 200,000 listeners on reach to just above 1.5 million listeners. However, Absolute 80's the group flagship digital station, saw an increase, as did Absolute 90s.
Global Radio can't be too happy with their brands overall. Only Xfm saw gains in both reach and hours, LBC saw a gain in reach, but as with a lot of stations that see gains in reach, LBC saw a drop in both hours and share. All the other brands, Heart, Gold, Capital, Choice, Real and Smooth, all of them saw drops in both reach and hours overall. Within those general figures there are some incredible strange variations, some of which this time are more unusual than normal.
Looking deeper, into the individual stations, there are some interesting stories, but the one that stands out, and for very much the wrong reason, is Gold Devon. If you were to look at the year to year figures, you'd ask what the issue was. In the past year has gained 3,000 listeners, 30,000 hours and 0.2% share. Unfortunately those figures do not reveal the whole story about Gold Devon. In early 2012, the Exeter and Torbay local DAB multiplex arrived in North Devon, which increased the availability of Gold Devon into an area where it had never been available on AM before. Between Q3 2011 and Q1 2012, Gold Devon's reach almost doubled from 28,000 to 52,000. Their hours more than doubled from 271k to 605K, and their share more than doubled from 1.1% to 2.6%. Things were looking quite good for Gold Devon at this point.
However, that changed in April with the arrival on DAB of North Devon based community radio station, The Voice. The Voice had long lobbied to be allowed to broadcast to North Devon after the almagamation of Lantern FM, into what eventually became Heart Devon. They had been broadcasting a 28 day FM RSL and during that RSL, they agreed a deal with NOW Digital, to broadcast on DAB as well full time on the multiplex that had not long arrived in North Devon. They launched on DAB in April, broadcasting not just to North Devon, but also to Exeter and Torbay. The net result: Gold Devon got hammered. They lost about 40% of their reach, dropping from 52,000 to 31,000. Their hours have dropped by a little more than half, down from 605k to 301k, and their share halved from 2.6% to 1.3%
In the past year, Gold Devon has been on a huge rollercoaster, and we still don't yet know where this rollercoaster will end. There is still a possibility that Gold Devon could drop even more listeners. At one time, Gold Plymouth had just 7,000 listeners, and the Plymouth area is the only area in Devon now where Gold broadcasts on both AM and DAB. The fact that Gold's local advertising has to be sold together with Heart in Devon, rather than separately, suggests that Gold Devon may not be profitable on its own, even with the fact that there is no local programming, and limited local content, sometimes as little as a 20 second weather forecast per hour.
Every station's figures fluctuate to some degree, but Gold Devon's figures are amongst some of the wildest swings I've ever witnessed.
In Devon and Cornwall, few stations are performing well. BBC Radio Cornwall is down 7,000 reach on the quarter, but is up 2,000 reach on the year. Over the year, Radio Cornwall has gained 42,000 hours, but the share has dropped 0.4%, mainly because the TSA figure is 4,000 more now than it was in Q3 2011. On the quarter, Radio Cornwall has gained 84,000 hours and 0.3% share, mainly due to the fact people are listening longer. 12.4 hours per week this quarter, compared with 11.3 last quarter.
BBC Radio Devon's reach was stable at 203,000, still down 56,000 listeners on the year, but the station saw a massive drop in listener hours. 9.5 hours per week this quarter compared with 11.4 hours last quarter and 10.7 hours a year ago. As a result of this, the total hours figure dropped below 2 million for the first time in a long time, if ever. I cannot recall nor can I find currently evidence that it has ever been that low. The share of listening dropped below 10% for the first time in a long time, if ever, in fact it dropped below 9%. Something has clearly gone awry at Radio Devon, and frankly without some in-depth investigation, I'm not sure what the answer is. It maybe that the cancellation of the separate Plymouth breakfast show has significantly hurt the station.
Whatever the problems are at BBC Radio Devon, Heart Devon has definitely benefited from them. Although down in the reach by 19,000 on last year, the station is up 17,000 on the previous quarter. Share is up by 1.2% on the previous quarter as well, and total hours was also up by 241,000, though that's still down 96,000 hours on last year. Sister station Heart Cornwall is also performing well, well above my own expectations. 69,000 listeners is up 1,000 on the quarter, down 1,000 on the year, so definitely holding steady there. However, Heart Cornwall is outperforming its predecessor, Atlantic FM in terms of holding on to listeners. Average Hours per week in up to 7.4 hours, a new high for the licence, beating Atlantic FM's previous best of 7.1 hours per week in Q1 2011. Both Heart Devon and Heart Cornwall are outperforming the network as a whole on Average Hours per week, with Heart Devon's 8.1 and Heart Cornwall's 7.4 beating the network's 7,2. However, all these figures are still on the low side of what I consider to be the mark to aim for, which is 10 hours a week and higher. However, none of these figures are remotely anywhere near the worst. Absolute 70's scores 3.1 hours per week, then The Hits scores 3.0 hours per week. Pulse 2 scores a paltry 2.8 hours per week, but that is beaten by Q, the worst performer of them all at just 2.7 hours per week. In terms of keeping them listening, Heart do okay.
The other story that I've been following with interest is Celador Radio, and more particularly, their soft AC brand, The Breeze. Figures for The Breeze have never been great, and even though the Hampshire version has increased their reach by 7,000 to 42,000; the South West version has slipped from 29,000 to 26,000. Even the recently rebranded Midwest Radio, which is now The Breeze, but still reports under the Midwest Radio name, has slipped from 37,000 to 35,000 listeners. Given the fact that The Breeze has been removed from the Bristol and Hampshire local multiplexes, the viability of the brand as a whole, as an FM only brand, is seriously called into question. Given that two other FM only stations in Devon have either lost listeners in the past quarter or not gained any listeners, the idea that any station only needs to be on FM these days, is starting to smell like a busted myth. Radio Exe did not gain any listeners in the last quarter, holding at just 25,000 reach. However, it did keep listeners for a bit longer, so hours and share were up. Palm FM on the other hand lost 3,000 listeners in the last quarter, and both hours and share were maginally lower. Back with Celador, until recently, Jack FM was the better performer. However, in the last quarter,, Jack Bristol saw a sharp decline in reach, from 116,000 to 92,000. However, hours and share both saw an increase on the previous quarter, but are still way down on last year. Jack Oxfordshire is seeing declines in reach, hours and share on the previous quarter. However, Jack South Coast is performing better on reach, hours and share.
Another story worth mentioning is Free Radio 80s, which replaced Gold in the West Midlands. In the Birmingham area, Free Radio 80's is outperforming what Gold used to achieve. 93,000 compared to 71,000. Even around the Coverntry area, performance is the same at 21,000. So right now, I'd call Free Radio 80s a success story so far.
So overall, what do the figures tell us? Well, non-music radio held itself together, better than music radio in the last quarter, and digital radio only stations seemed to perform better than FM only stations. Brand radio seemed to do poorly, but other stations also suffered. The Olympics were great for TV audiences, but those increased TV audiences meant radio lost out. Local commercial radio continued to trend downward, with little or no sign that stations are actively trying to reverse the trend. Radio needs to do something pretty drastic if they are going to attract the attention of younger listeners these days, and just being aural wallpaper, is not going to cut it any longer.
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