BBC Local Radio: Does it have a future?

So, I'm doing my regular skimming around the various forums, looking for interesting posts, and I spot something on Digital Spy that actually got me thinking.

I know, something on Digital Spy actually got me thinking, that's a first!

The poster posed a question about BBC Local Radio as a whole.  Has it, as an idea, had its day?  Indeed, some of the commenters there raised very valid and accurate points about the state of BBC Local Radio.

BBC Local Radio as a whole has over 8.5 million listeners every week.  That's not a shabby performance, especially when you consider the nearest thing to a comparable commercial network, Heart, gets over 9.1 million listeners per week, and other than Heart, the only stations that score higher, are BBC Radios 1, 2 & 4.  By those standards of measurement, surely BBC Local Radio's future as a whole is secure.

But start digging just below the surface of those numbers, and the picture looks a lot different.

Just in the last year, BBC Local Radio as a whole, has lost over 400,000 listeners.  That's not so good.  The overall share of listening is also down slightly.

And when you start looking at individual stations, it doesn't get much better.

Let's start with BBC Guernsey.  In a market where you have two main local stations, one BBC and one commercial (Island FM), you'd think that given the way the BBC is always portrayed by commercial radio companies as being dominant that the BBC Local station would be the runaway leader here, and you'd be wrong.

In a market that has only 53,000 available listeners, BBC Guernsey scores 20,000 whilst Island FM scores 32,000.  In the last year, BBC Guernsey has lost 4,000 weekly listeners, whilst Island FM has also lost listeners, just 1,000 of them though.  Obviously national radio in Guernsey has gained listeners compared to the local stations.

But even with losing 1,000 listeners, Island FM has still seen its share of listening go up from 45.7% to 46.1% in the past year.  Not too shabby.  By comparison BBC Guernsey's share of listening has dropped, from 20.9% to 20.5%.  So how does Island FM do so much better than BBC Guernsey?

Some could put it down to the fact that Island FM is a more music service, but that's too simple an explanation.  If that was all it was, commercial radio as a whole would be outperforming the BBC and that simply isn't the case.  BBC Radio 4 outperforms every other station and network, except for BBC Radio 2, so the amount of music clearly isn't the deciding factor here.

When you listen to the output of Island FM, one thing stands out immediately.  It has a very community-based feel to it.  They talk a lot about local events and promote local causes.  Live local programming hours are greater than on most mainland local commercial stations, from 6am to 10pm on weekdays, 7am to 6pm on Saturdays, and 8am to Midday on Sundays, their Sunday afternoon show is voice tracked, according to their public file, although when listening in myself, I couldn't tell that it wasn't live.  It's also one of the few remaining local commercial stations to feature a sports show on a Saturday afternoon.

If anything, it's a mixture of having a good mix of music, familiar enough, yet with enough variation that allows you to discover tracks you might not have heard before, combined with the community feel, and a professional imaging that doesn't make the station sound small and you have what I consider to be the perfect balance of elements to make great commercial radio.

The news on the hour doesn't feel too long, at 3 minutes, and you feel briefed, rather than feeling like you've not been told enough.  Radio news itself is another whole separate issue that I could talk about in another long article, but I'll save that for another time.  Suffice to say, Island FM's news feels about right.

Okay, so I can hear the next question forming in your minds.  "That's in a one BBC versus one local commercial situation, but in my area, there are 2 or more local commercial stations up against one BBC local radio station.  Does BBC Local Radio do any better there?"

Well, let's use BBC Radio Cornwall as an example.  BBC Radio Cornwall has traditionally been one of BBC Local Radio's better performers, so if that is leading, then maybe the picture isn't quite so bad.

Well, BBC Radio Cornwall does score a decent 141,000 listeners in a market of 463,000.  That's a 30% reach, that's pretty good... but that's down 12,000 listeners in the past year.  It's scoring decently on share as well, a none too shabby 16.1% share of listening... down from 18.3% a year ago.  Oh dear, this picture ain't looking too great to be fair.  But, if it's ahead of its commercial competition, then we can still call it more successful.

Let's start with the biggest national name in local radio, Heart.  Heart do report their Cornwall service separately, so we do have a direct comparison.  And they score... 117,000.  24,000 less than BBC Radio Cornwall, so BBC Radio Cornwall is still more popular.  However, that score is up 20,000 on the same time last year.  That doesn't sound so good for BBC Radio Cornwall, who have lost 12,000 listeners in the same time.

How does share of listening compare.  Well, Heart are much further back on that count, scoring only 8.5% share, but that is up on the 6.6% of a year ago.  However, it's still nowhere near BBC Radio Cornwall's 16.1%.

But although they may be the biggest name in local commercial radio nationally, Heart are comparative newcomers to Cornwall, as Pirate FM were Cornwall's first local commercial radio service, launching in 1992.  How do they compare to BBC Radio Cornwall?

Well, on the reach side, Pirate FM scores... 165,000.  24,000 more than BBC Radio Cornwall, and that's up 5,000 in the last year.  That's not so good for BBC Local Radio.  However, on the share side, Pirate FM comes in at 11.7%, quite a way back from Radio Cornwall's 16.1%, and itself, down from 12.5% a year ago.

And those figures don't show how that compares to recent entrant NJoy Radio, who broadcast on DAB, and are not currently registered with RAJAR for ratings, nor does it show how it compares to the various community stations that broadcast on FM across Cornwall, Penwith Radio, Source FM, CHBN, The Hub and RSAB.  And even then, because of broadcast area, we don't know how many listeners in the Cornwall area listen to other stations that are available in the area, but are not predominantly targeted at Cornwall, such as Radio Plymouth, BBC Radio Devon and Smooth Plymouth.  Also, we don't have figures for two other DAB stations that Pirate FM produce.  Pirate Oldies or Escape To Cornwall.

It's not clear cut by any means, but it is fair to say that BBC Radio Cornwall is amongst the best performers in the BBC Local Radio stable.  Their next door neighbour, BBC Radio Devon, has had in recent times one of the worst collapses of audience I've ever seen.  In just one year, they've dropped from 212,000 weekly listeners, to just 169,000.  That's a massive 43,000 listeners deserting BBC Radio Devon.  The figures for share of listening are no better.  One year ago, 11.4% share.  Today, just 7.6% share.  That's a drop of a third overall.  A 33.3% fall in share of listening, just let that sink in for a second.  There's a third less listening overall to BBC Radio Devon in the past year.  That's a big problem.  A problem that is somewhat disguised by the fact that there isn't really a direct comparison available with Heart in Devon, or with Radio Plymouth, Radio Exe and The Breeze (formerly Palm FM).  Also, there are no figures for any of the community radio stations in Devon, Soundart Radio, Phonic FM, The Voice or Bay FM.  So it's difficult to know exactly where the listeners are going, and how BBC Radio Devon should respond.

But even if they did know, they are hamstrung by the dictats from London which limit what BBC local radio can actually do.  The BBC Local Radio formula which was devised back in the early 1990s might have seemed like a good idea then, but the audience profile has changed so significantly, that BBC Local Radio these days sounds ridiculously old fashioned and out of date, a museum piece that needs to be brought up to date.

Whilst it's admirable to commit to local journalism, nothing that BBC local radio does in journalism terms even comes close to being worthy local journalism.  This is a similar problem that has been facing local NPR stations across America, and they've come up with many different applications but the basic guiding principle has been the same.  Don't go for the easy stories, the ones that are important, but basically dull.  Also, don't go for the standard commercial fare, high on the interest scale, but lacking any importance at all.  Find stories that are both interesting and important, and find new, more interesting, more compelling ways to tell them.

Indeed, I found one such story that I brought onto my own show, which had so many angles that I needed to give the whole story a lot more time.  The basic story was the local food bank was having a public fundraising appeal to help pay for the bigger premises that they had to move into, because of increased demand for the food bank's help.  But the food bank wasn't the only community service that was in the new location, there were other services that were sharing that building, so it made sense to me to cover the basic story, but also to talk about each of the services that were at that location.

The story also played into the two higher tiers in the Public Radio News Director's Guide.  There are four tiers of news, according to the guide.

Tier One: Commercial
Tier Two: Staged
Tier Three: Local Impact/National
Tier Four: Local Meaning.

The story was a local impact of a national trend, the growing use of food banks since 2010, so it fitted in tier three.  But it also fitted in tier four.  It was about something that was truly making a difference in the local community.  It made perfect sense to do that story, and to give it more airtime than BBC or commercial radio would ever give it.

Unfortunately, most BBC local reporting still fits into Tier one or two on the scale.  Very little comes under tier three or tier four.  Also, a lot of the reporting can be summed up as worthy, but dull, and that does nothing for the appeal of BBC local radio.

Whilst it's understandable that commercial radio would stick pretty close to tier one and tier two, and indeed mostly does, there are occasions when even commercial radio will touch on tier three or tier four, and those are the times commercial radio genuinely surprises.  BBC local radio on the other hand, rarely does surprise.

So, what does BBC local radio need to do?

Well, its local journalism needs to be more interesting, better presented and produced, and it needs to be less commercial, and more tier three and tier four, more relevant to the local area, more local impact and local meaning.

The music needs to be generally broader, and at times, there does need to be more music than talk.  Not every hour should be more music, or more talk, or even all talk.   What it needs to be is right for the time of day.  Breakfast should always aim to be more informed, but that doesn't necessarily mean music has to be completely excluded.  By enforcing a strict 70:30 ratio of talk to music during daytime and evening, it means that far too often, BBC local radio is just talking about stuff to fill airtime, stuff that really shouldn't be taking up that airtime, and stories that deserve more time, just aren't getting it.

Let the balance of music and talk work itself out for each station.  Also, BBC local radio's reliance on phone ins to help fill the airtime doesn't help matters as often, the contributions go on way too long, and leave you begging for a producer to pull the plug on a phone call because somebody's spoken for far too long and said very little if anything of any use to the station or the listener.

What BBC local radio needs is a complete overhaul, but unfortunately, I don't see any such overhaul coming.

RAJAR Q1 2013: P... P... P... Problems?

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.

R.I.P. Douglas Mounce

Douglas Mounce, formerly of BBC Radio Devon and Radio Plymouth, was an inspiration to me.  One of the original voices of BBC Radio Devon, host of Treasure Hunt, the Sunday morning gameshow, and Showtime, all about the songs from the shows, amongst many other programmes, he had an infectious personality and superb wit.  I will miss his wonderful on air personality.

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.

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.

My thoughts on the Q1 2012 RAJARs

There are a few notable things in this new report, which was released at Midnight. 

The Cornish local radio stations, all down compared to last quarter.  Very unusual.  Usually one will be up even if the others are down.  Best performer out of the three was BBC Radio Cornwall, which was only down 2,000 in reach and 0.2% in terms of share.  The station maintained its average hours at 11.3 hrs per listener. 

Atlantic FM though, is already showing signs that the move by Global to buy it out might have been a mistake.  The announcement was made on 19th March, right towards the end of Q1.  And if these figures are anything to go by, then Atlantic's listenership might well had already started to desert by the end of the quarter.  The figures are down 5,000 on reach, average hours dropped to 5.4 and share dropped from 3.6 to 3.4%.  And this was before any of the Heart branding got added into the mix.

But surprisingly, the worst performer of the three was Pirate FM.  Down 8,000 in reach, down 0.3 hours in average hours, and down 0.8% in share.  Pirate FM did replace their evening presenter at the beginning of the quarter with an extension of their automated programming.  That maybe the reason why they're down.

In South East Cornwall, you might have expected Heart or Gold to be the beneficiaries of such a drop.  Well if Heart Devon did benefit, though it is unlikely, they lost out elsewhere in Devon.  Heart Devon saw their own audience drop 11,000 on reach, down 0.2 on average hours and down 0.1% on share.  But Gold did gain, but it might not have been entirely due to the reduction in audience in the other stations.  Gold Devon got carraige on DAB in North Devon and maybe that had as much to do with it, as anything else.  Gold gained 13,000 listeners in reach, saw their average hours increase by 4 hours, and as a result, their share more than doubled, from 1.2% to 2.6%.  I will need to pay a little more attention to Gold, to see if I can discern why their audience is growing that significantly.

You might have expected BBC Radio Devon to have picked up significantly from Heart Devon, but they did not.  In fact, they lost 22,000 listeners on reach.  However, average hours went up from 12.5 to 13.2 and as a result, share increased 0.2% on the previous quarter. 

In other news, BBC Radios Guernsey, Jersey and Cornwall continue to be the best performing of the BBC local radio stations, although Cornwall (37%) has moved into second place on that list, putting Jersey (35%) into 3rd place.  BBC Radio Norfolk is 4th on 30% reach, the only other station to achieve 30%+ in terms of reach in the BBC Local Radio stable.  Worst perfomer there is BBC London, in the ultra competitive London market only achieving a 5% reach.  Next was BBC Sussex and Surrey with 9% reach, and equal third, BBC WM and BBC Coventry and Warwickshire, both with 11% reach.

In national commercial radio, Absolute Radio is down 32,000 listeners, whilst Absolute 80s gained 29,000 and Absolute 90s gained 32,000 listeners, Classic FM gained 80,000 listeners, Talk Sport gained 36,000 listeners, Smooth Radio UK gained 2,000 listeners, Jazz FM gained 52,000 listeners and Planet Rock gained 50,000 listeners.

BBC Radio 2 gaining 293,000 listeners, and 5 Live saw an icrease of 137,000 listeners but other BBC nationals did not perform so well.  Radio 1 saw a drop of 524,000 listeners, Radio 4 saw a drop of 527,000 listeners, Radio 3 lost 195,000 listeners.  The BBC national digital stations were also a mixed bag.  Whilst 5 Live Sports Extra saw a massive 336,000 listener increase, Asian Network increased by 68,000 and 6 Music gained 11,000 listeners, on the flip side, 1Xtra lost 99,000 listeners, World Service lost 85,000 and Radio 4 Extra lost 52,000 listeners. 

Overall, it's difficult to determine any distinct pattern or trend, although national commercial radio seemed to be the greater beneficiary, with a few exceptions.  Although Heart Devon lost listeners and Gold Devon gained, the reverse was true across the networks.  Heart gained slightly across the UK, whilst Gold lost listeners.  The Breeze South West continued to lose ground, losing another 5,000 listeners, and dropping below 1% in share, whilst sister station Jack FM gained 10,000 listeners in Bristol, but they average hours went down by 2 hours.  Local commmercial radio doesn't seem to gaining much ground, if any.  Without significant improvement to the local commercial radio product, listeners will continue to desert stations.  The BBC needs to be wary that any cuts made to BBC local radio, especially the replacing of regional evening shows with an England-wide evening show, may send listeners away from the radio entirely in the evening, especially with local commercial radio moving away from live evening shows themselves.  And once they disappear, it will be hard to get them back.

Ratings Review: RAJAR Quarter 3 2007

The new set of RAJARs for June to September 2007 are out, and there are many interesting things to report.

First to the BBC Local Radio stations, and their top 10 by reach percentage...

01. BBC Radio Jersey - 45%
02. BBC Radio Cornwall - 36%
03. BBC Radio Guernsey - 35%
04. BBC Radio Cumbria - 33%
05. BBC Radio Stoke - 32%
06. BBC Radio Humberside - 30%
07. BBC Hereford & Worcester - 29%
08. BBC Radio Suffolk - 27%

and then we have a 4-way tie

09=. BBC Radio Derby - 25%
09=. BBC Radio Devon - 25%
09=. BBC Radio Norfolk - 25%
09=. BBC Radio Shropshire - 25%

BBC Radio Cornwall's performance is a real standout in that list, despite having a lot of competition in the area, with Pirate FM, Atlantic FM, and on DAB, Plymouth Sound as well, broadcasting across the county of Cornwall, and despite being 2% down on the last quarter.

Pirate FM have done well this quarter with 31%, up 1% on the last quarter. But the local story in Cornwall is Atlantic FM, who are up 3% on the quarter, despite still being in third place overall.

Nearby Plymouth Sound are down 2% on the quarter to 29% reach. BBC Radio Devon are holding steady at about 25%. Gemini FM are down 1% to 34%, whilst Lantern FM are down 2% at 39% reach.

Orchard FM have managed their own standout performance, gaining an extra 3% to 39% reach. South Hams Radio is down 1% at 14%.

Meanwhile, the newly merged Classic Gold and Capital Gold brand, known only as Gold, is floundering badly. Gold Plymouth is down 1% to 3% in percentage terms, but that represents losing about 25% of their audience, from a reach of 13,000 listeners to a reach of just 9,000. The audience for the 1152 AM frequency has collapsed since the local Plymouth Sound AM was closed and replaced with the semi national Classic Gold Plymouth, as it was. Perhaps OFCOM will do well to remember this when the Plymouth AM licence comes up for renewal. The licence is due to expire at the end of 2015.

However, the Exeter & Torbay version is a bit of a standout gaining 2% to 5%. An extra 7,000 listeners for the AM station which partners Gemini FM.

It's a little trickier to discern the top perfomers in local commercial radio,due to the sheer number of stations but here we go...

01. Radio Borders - 54%
02. Radio Pembrokeshire - 53%
03=. Manx Radio - 52%
03=. Channel 103 FM - 52%
05. Island FM 104.7 - 49%
06. Moray Firth Radio - 47%
07. West Sound - 45%
08. Spire FM - 44%
09. Yorkshire Coast Radio 42%
10. C. F. M. Radio - 41%

Notable there is that the two locals for the Channel Islands, Channel 103 FM and Island FM, both manage to outscore their BBC counterparts, and as well, between BBC Radios Geurnsey and Jersey, Channel 103 and Island FM, they manage to almost completely dominate radio listneing in the Channel Islands. The national stations between them don't get much of a look in.

Also notable there is Manx Radio which is unconnected to the ILR network, and began broadcasting on 29 June 1964, 9 years before ILR began and 3 years before any BBC Local Radio stations. 1964 was the height of the pirate radio revolution in Britain. Radio Caroline had begun broadcasting just 3 months earlier on 28th March and Radio Atlanta had lanuched on 12 May. At the time of Manx Radio's launch, Radio Atlanta was days away from closure and eventual merger with Radio Caroline to become Caroline South.

On the national front, BBC Radio 2 continues to be the most popular national station with just over 13 million listeners. Radio 1 is next with around 10.5 million listeners and third is BBC Radio 4 with just over 9.25 million listeners.

Next comes the most popular national commercial radio station, Classic FM with over 5.8 million listeners. Radio Five Live is just behind them with just under 5.5 million listeners.

Of the pseudo-national commercial networks, the top performers continue to outperform the national stations on AM and Digital, TalkSport and Virgin Radio. Magic is the best performing network with 3.43 million listeners, followed closely by Heart with just under 3.33 million listeners. Kiss is also a top performer with just under 3.1 million listeners, as is Galaxy's network with 2.6 million listeners.

By comparison, Virgin have around 2.47 million listeners and TalkSport, a mere 2.31 million.

Comparing very unfavourably in the network stakes is Gold. I highlighted the Plymouth station as a particular failure of the brand, but as a whole, the network is not much better. The network of stations on AM and DAB gets just under 1.5 million listners, which is down from the around 1.58 million listeners of the combined Capital and Classic Gold networks last quarter. When you think that this includes station in high population areas such as London, Bristol, Birmingham and Manchester, this performance comes across as doubly poor!