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.