The latest radio ratings were released in the UK and Ireland last week. While stations crow over who is No.1 we’re concerned with a basic, yet essential question; how is radio as a platform performing?
In Ireland, the news is not good, with overall listening taking another dive. Currently the Average Weekday Yesterday Listenership figure is at 84%. About ten years ago that was up at 89%. It’s clear the trend is showing less and less Irish people are listening to radio.
The opposite is true in the UK where radio …

Overall listening to radio in Ireland is on the way down.
To see a trend you need to look back over the years which I have done and you can also.
In 1999, the JNLR Listened Yesterday figure for All Radio was 88%. The most recent JNLR reports that same figure as 85%. A drop of 3%.
It gets really interesting when you compare us to the UK market. In 1999 the RAJAR Listened Yesterday figure for All Radio was 89%. The most recent RAJAR reports that same figure as 92%. An …

FM in the UK continues its downward fall.
The latest RAJAR market trends released yesterday shows a market share for analogue (AM & FM) has fallen to 65.4% with the remainder of listening done on growing DAB and digital platforms.
The big winners are digital only stations like Jazz and Planet Rock. Absolute Radio have also done phenomenally well with about half their listeners tuning in on DAB, Freeview and online. Not bad for an AM licenced station!
What I also find interesting, is that this churn is actually driving an …

To the annoyance of DAB detractors digital radio continues to grow in the UK.
The latest RAJAR results for digital radio are stunning.
In Reach, that is how many people use it however briefly, digital radio is heard by 38.5% of the population at some stage during an average week.
Most importantly in Share, that is out of all listening to all radio how much is shared by digital, the amazing result is 24%. Wow! Just on a quarter of ALL radio listening in the UK is now done using a digital receiver …

One thing I hear over and over is that internet radio is the future. Radio broadcasters will leapfrog DAB by going straight from FM to streaming online.
Bull. If you believe that … consider this;
After at least 10 years of radios availability online, RAJAR the UK radio ratings company, report only 2% of people listen to radio online. This morning Irish station Today FM has a reported JNLR 1/4 hour audience of 150,000. A quick check of their Shoutcast servers shows 2,000 people, or 1.3% of the current audience, are listening …

The Australian is reporting that more than 100,000 digital radios have been sold Down Under in the six months since DAB+ launched there.
The figure, twice as many as expected, was revealed by Frontier Silicon the company which supplies the chips and software for the majority of receivers in the market. Chief Executive of Frontier Silicon, Anthony Sethill, says they expect a further 250,000 sales this year meaning Australia will have 400,000 units in the market by Christmas.
Joan Warner of Commercial Radio Australia said they will “have official figures in March …

The latest RAJAR UK radio ratings were released yesterday and show some very interesting figures for digital radio.
Of the three main digital platforms, DAB and Digital TV and the Internet, DAB is the only platform showing an increase in usage. Up 15% on last year in fact.
The best comparision to look at is “Share of Listening”. This measures all listening to all radio on all platforms FM/AM/DAB/Internet etc.  DAB now accounts for 11.4% of all radio listening in the UK. Great to see something growing in these recessionary times!
Interestingly the …

Sorry to hear UBC have shut-down their mobile phone music download service Cliq
I believe Simon, Pascal and the guys at UBC have the right idea but perhaps they’re pursuing it on the wrong platform. Yes mobile phones are ubiquitous but they are essentially communication devices. You’ll use your phone to take some pictures or listen to some music but it’s dominant use is to communicate with phone calls and text.
RAJAR shows the amount of people who have ever listened to radio on a mobile phone is just over 10%. They …

While the UK radio industry continue to the debate where they’re going with DAB, listeners keep buying new radio sets in their droves.
RAJAR numbers for Q1 2008 were released this week containing lots of good news for digital radio with Reach and Share both up. The big figure is the increase in ownership of DAB radios. 27% of the population now own a DAB set at home. As a friend of mine always says, that’s 14 million unsubsidised radios. Could Sky TV beat that? I don’t think so!
I put this …