None of you Global worshippers commenting on Hearts slippage then?
I think people are starting to bore of Heart as it doesn't move on with the times, it is pretty much the same format when they rolled it out across the UK to old heritage stations a good few years ago.
I think Heart needs a major refresh to turn around its decline in audience.
None of you Global worshippers commenting on Hearts slippage then?
Audience share for the Heart Network is up year on year (Q1 2014 - Q1 2015) and total hours have also increased 7.6% year on year. Its still the UK's biggest commercial brand with 9 million listeners.
Meanwhile Smooth has added almost half a million listeners with an 11% increase year on year. LBC has also increased by an extra 128,000 listeners year on year.
I am not surprised that Radio Derby has done well. I have listened to BBC locals in different parts of England and Derby more than most seems to know its listeners and what they want.
Ian Skye is an excellent breakfast show host and Andy Potter produces some great stuff on the Afternoon Show.
Audience share for the Heart Network is up year on year (Q1 2014 - Q1 2015) and total hours have also increased 7.6% year on year. Its still the UK's biggest commercial brand with 9 million listeners.
Meanwhile Smooth has added almost half a million listeners with an 11% increase year on year. LBC has also increased by an extra 128,000 listeners year on year.
heart north west has its lowest listener figures since its launch
Audience share for the Heart Network is up year on year (Q1 2014 - Q1 2015) and total hours have also increased 7.6% year on year. Its still the UK's biggest commercial brand with 9 million listeners.
Meanwhile Smooth has added almost half a million listeners with an 11% increase year on year. LBC has also increased by an extra 128,000 listeners year on year.
Year on year. The big picture of course. The quarterly drop is of no significance?
The Heart format (but not the name) was already in place and on air when fieldwork for Q1 2014 ended.
the only things that kept heart nw in the position it is in are:
1. curiosity, as the change was heavily publicised on air
2. heavy promotion around the north west, the promotional budget must have been huge
you had huge peaks in q3 14 which is when the money was being thrown around, now everyone is getting bored and switching off
Either AM radio is enjoying an unlikely resurgence in the area, or people are actually listening to Smooth on 100.4 FM (which has also got record figures) and ticking the wrong station.
Is this similar to what's happened in London with LBC ? The main station appears to have lost reach in the capital but surprisingly figures for the newly rebranded part time rolling news LBC London News (formerly known as LBC News 1152) have shot up.
Suspecting the wrong station is being ticked. Just like the claim that the trick of more marketing works to get the brand in the head of the person filling in the book.
The sooner they kill off rubbish like Rajar and replace it with an actual lister method, the better. At least claims will be more accurate then.
Suspecting the wrong station is being ticked. Just like the claim that the trick of more marketing works to get the brand in the head of the person filling in the book.
The sooner they kill off rubbish like Rajar and replace it with an actual lister method, the better. At least claims will be more accurate then.
Except that none of the electronic methods of recording broadcast radio listening seem to work. They have been trialled. Not only do they have many errors (getting the station wrong), they also assume someone is listening to the station when they may just be walking past a market stall. Recording online streams would only account for about 5% of the audience and even that is prone to misinterpretation.
You make a good case for not using the figures without any further analysis and ignoring the Q on Q trends. An intelligent review should be able to compensate for error e.g. Watching Magic TV or listening to Smooth AM and ticking the Magic box.
Except that none of the electronic methods of recording broadcast radio listening seem to work. They have been trialled. Not only do they have many errors (getting the station wrong), they also assume someone is listening to the station when they may just be walking past a market stall. Recording online streams would only account for about 5% of the audience and even that is prone to misinterpretation.
You make a good case for not using the figures without any further analysis and ignoring the Q on Q trends. An intelligent review should be able to compensate for error e.g. Watching Magic TV or listening to Smooth AM and ticking the Magic box.
I read Rajar and some overseas reporting companies were still testing the Arbitron and IPSOS MediaCell electronic audio meters?
So who did well this time around? The 'Gold Star' for Q1/2015 goes to Absolute, with its Golden Square stablemate Magic in runner-up. They were the only two commercial stations to gain audience this quarter, with Absolute, Kiss and Smooth the only ones showing a year-on-year increase.
If you understand Rajar properly you will know the year on year figure gives you a clearer picture of long term trends.
I take your point in theory but I'm not sure I totally agree.
If a station's figures consistently showed a particular Q was better or worse there may be a case but in the majority of results this pattern doesn't exist. However I'm sure there are cases.
Whether Heart are doing well or not Rajar can never show how the station is being used, ie for background music or more intense listening. This must be important to advertisers.
Ben Cooper's blog is realllly depressing. You get the feeling he'd rather be running a YouTube channel than a radio station. Trouble is, he'd make a lot less money if his salary came out of the monetisation of YouTube views. It's hard to see how the BBC can convert video watchers and social media addicts into the radio listeners of the future, but downgrading a flagship radio station into a video/social media hybrid surely isn't the way.
Oh, and Ben: I can't remember anything about the day I got my exam results. I doubt many people over 25 can. It was just another day. No one cried. No one died.
Year on year. The big picture of course. The quarterly drop is of no significance?
Put simply in Globalspeak or in the terms of the "Global can do nothing apologists" it means that listenership hasn't fallen, which is the kind of simplistic interpretation that non-believers like you and me might fall into trap of making...it means that the figures have again increased but in a negative direction!
Juice FM Liverpool continues to do very well. Isn't the plan to change it into a Capital station? Idiotic!
Liverpool is probably* the largest market in the UK without Capital so I can see why Global want to expand there. It shouldn't be at the expense of Juice though. If OFCOM can't find another frequency, maybe they should allow City Talk to be sold and change the format.
* the other contender would be Brizzle,but that has Kiss, and possibly fringe reception of Capital Cardiff in some areas of town.
I think the fact that Kiss has a single identical proposition on all it's platforms has helped them significantly. Wherever you are, whatever you are going to listen on, the content is the same. You can't say that about Capital or Heart yet, although they are national brands they don't have that uniform identity. I think people do chop about, maybe a bit of FM in the car, TV in the lounge , streaming in the bedroom , if it's a joined up service that can only be a positive thing (from that point of view)
Comments
I think people are starting to bore of Heart as it doesn't move on with the times, it is pretty much the same format when they rolled it out across the UK to old heritage stations a good few years ago.
I think Heart needs a major refresh to turn around its decline in audience.
Meanwhile Smooth has added almost half a million listeners with an 11% increase year on year. LBC has also increased by an extra 128,000 listeners year on year.
Ian Skye is an excellent breakfast show host and Andy Potter produces some great stuff on the Afternoon Show.
heart north west has its lowest listener figures since its launch
Year on year. The big picture of course. The quarterly drop is of no significance?
it didnt exist a year ago
you cant use another station's figures and claim they are your own
the only things that kept heart nw in the position it is in are:
1. curiosity, as the change was heavily publicised on air
2. heavy promotion around the north west, the promotional budget must have been huge
you had huge peaks in q3 14 which is when the money was being thrown around, now everyone is getting bored and switching off
Yes, as did Matt Deegan I'm pleased to say.
I suspect it's not that high and there are some erroneous diary entries as another poster pointed out. Still, it seems like a strong debut.
Is this similar to what's happened in London with LBC ? The main station appears to have lost reach in the capital but surprisingly figures for the newly rebranded part time rolling news LBC London News (formerly known as LBC News 1152) have shot up.
Are you able to explain why you think it's a load of rubbish. I can't see any proof of that let alone "more" proof.
The sooner they kill off rubbish like Rajar and replace it with an actual lister method, the better. At least claims will be more accurate then.
Except that none of the electronic methods of recording broadcast radio listening seem to work. They have been trialled. Not only do they have many errors (getting the station wrong), they also assume someone is listening to the station when they may just be walking past a market stall. Recording online streams would only account for about 5% of the audience and even that is prone to misinterpretation.
You make a good case for not using the figures without any further analysis and ignoring the Q on Q trends. An intelligent review should be able to compensate for error e.g. Watching Magic TV or listening to Smooth AM and ticking the Magic box.
but good analysis should show trends and what is happening to audiences as they tune into stations?
Paul Eason has updated his interesting blog and London graphs
http://pauleaston.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/london-rajar-q12015.html Also from the graphs the Smooth breakfast show still does not work as well as it should?
and Ben Cooper has done an interesting blog
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/ben-cooper/radio-1-between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place_b_7349906.html?utm_hp_ref=uk&ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000067
Edit: and also how low1xtras share is in London as well. Presumably Londoners prefer pirates?
Share in London is always that 'low', which makes sense considering how many stations there are there.
I doubt the pirates make much of a dent.
If a station's figures consistently showed a particular Q was better or worse there may be a case but in the majority of results this pattern doesn't exist. However I'm sure there are cases.
Whether Heart are doing well or not Rajar can never show how the station is being used, ie for background music or more intense listening. This must be important to advertisers.
ps thanks for the excellent charts Vinnie.
Ben Cooper's blog is realllly depressing. You get the feeling he'd rather be running a YouTube channel than a radio station. Trouble is, he'd make a lot less money if his salary came out of the monetisation of YouTube views. It's hard to see how the BBC can convert video watchers and social media addicts into the radio listeners of the future, but downgrading a flagship radio station into a video/social media hybrid surely isn't the way.
Oh, and Ben: I can't remember anything about the day I got my exam results. I doubt many people over 25 can. It was just another day. No one cried. No one died.
Put simply in Globalspeak or in the terms of the "Global can do nothing apologists" it means that listenership hasn't fallen, which is the kind of simplistic interpretation that non-believers like you and me might fall into trap of making...it means that the figures have again increased but in a negative direction!
Der...innit
Liverpool is probably* the largest market in the UK without Capital so I can see why Global want to expand there. It shouldn't be at the expense of Juice though. If OFCOM can't find another frequency, maybe they should allow City Talk to be sold and change the format.
* the other contender would be Brizzle,but that has Kiss, and possibly fringe reception of Capital Cardiff in some areas of town.
I think the fact that Kiss has a single identical proposition on all it's platforms has helped them significantly. Wherever you are, whatever you are going to listen on, the content is the same. You can't say that about Capital or Heart yet, although they are national brands they don't have that uniform identity. I think people do chop about, maybe a bit of FM in the car, TV in the lounge , streaming in the bedroom , if it's a joined up service that can only be a positive thing (from that point of view)