So, it was RAJARS day again yesterday, with the latest radio listening figures released, and it was another good day stats wise for good old BBC Radio, who scored record audiences for flagship shows, like the Chris Moyles and Terry Wogan breakfast shows on Radios 1 and 2. The Beeb's overall lead in the first quarter of the year in terms of audience share was 15.7%, up from 13.9% in the same quarter of 2007. Radio 2 did particularly well, with Wogan scoring an all time high of 13.63 million listeners a week, and the station overall scoring a record audience share of 16.5%. No wonder everyone wants to be on Radio 2 these days. While there were some successes in commercial radio, and commercial stations still perform better among younger demographics, the commercial sector, despite talking about the need to work together to better compete with the BBC, hasn't gained any ground. With relatively new hands now in charge of big chunks of the commercial radio sector - Bauer since their acquisition of EMAP Radio, and Global following their acquisition of Chrysalis Radio and (assuming it goes through) GCap - it remains to be seen if the new top guard of the sector can better compete with the Corporation.
Global's ongoing acquisition of GCap will hopefully help distract senior execs there from their RAJARs, which include two disappointments in the London market - flagship FM station Capital fell behind Bauer's Kiss for the first time ever in terms of number of listeners - something that would have been unimaginable ten years ago. Meanwhile alternative station Xfm saw its audience fall 40% in comparison to the previous year, probably as a combined result of their unsuccessful dabbling in unpopular presenter-free back-to-back request driven radio on daytime, and the rising popularity and availability of the BBC's 6Music, which has been stealing much of Xfm's traditional listenership. Elsewhere in London, Magic and Heart both competed for the number one commercial station in London crown. In terms of number of listeners, Magic was slightly down and Heart slightly up, but the former stayed ahead. In terms of audience share, both stations scored 5.8%.