Much nail biting is over in the radio world as the latest RAJAR figures hit the streets yesterday. Now PR departments are busy spinning any good news they can find for their respective stations.
Virgin Radio’s PR may have their work cut out. Virgin’s national listening figures drop by almost 20% over the last year. They say the fall in listeners – from an average of 3.7 million to 3 million a week – was a return to the norm after a temporary increase in listeners caused by the media hype of Chris Evan’s departure from the station. "We were on every national newspaper and every TV station nearly every day, which obviously drove an extra amount of listeners to Virgin Radio," a spokesman told BBC news. They claim a percentage of those extra listeners were inevitably not going to stick with the station (Steve Penk might argue they would have done had his breakfast show not been axed). They also stress that a wide range of programming changes have been made since Evan’s departure and that those changes are only just taking shape one year on.
Virgin can take heart, however, in the news that their listening figures in London, where they have an FM licence, are up 10%, while both Capital and Radio 1 face disappointments over their breakfast show figures.
At Capital Chris Tarrant has lost 300,000 listeners in the last three months. Although his show is still by far the most popular breakfast show in London it could be argued his popularity is waning and his eventual departure (now put off a year) might be a good thing for the station in the long term. Talking about Tarrants figures, and a decline in listening figures for the station overall, a Captial spokesperson said the company was "very, very confused and disappointed. We are perplexed because our tracking is generally spot-on and it shows a different story to the Rajar figures. And we don't have any data to show us where the listeners have gone.” Capital Radio shares fell 5.5% on the Rajar news, the first serious blow to the stock since Tarrant boosted the group last month by committing himself to the broadcaster for another year.
Tarrant himself is likely to more disappointed that his main competitor in the world of pop breakfast shows – Jono Coleman at Heart 106.2 – saw a huge 26% rise in his listening figures – now up to 862,000. Rumour has it the main motivation for Tarrant staying on at the Capital breakfast show was the thought that his departure would let Jono become number one! Jim Hicks, group programming director at Heart’s parent company Chrysalis said: "Within London we have spent a lot of time making sure our strategy positions us as a serious player and competitor to Capital. The combination of Jono and Emma is working very well on air.”
Over at the BBC, Radio 1 had mixed Rajars. They were up 350,000 listeners on the last quarter, but down 300,000 on last year. While the station’s bosses stressed the overall rise since a slump in listening figures in the Spring, pointing out none of their daytime shows had lost listeners and that Mark and Lard were up 750,000, some media commentators were more interested in the station’s decline year on year. Radio 1 is up on last quarter while Radio 2 is down, but Radio 1 is down on last year and Radio 2 is up – and Radio 2 maintains its position of most popular radio station in the UK. That Radio 2 continually beats Radio 1 these days is leading some to suggest that the pop station needs to go through a similar renaissance to the one that transformed Radio 2 from its image as an old person’s station to a credible listening choice for twenty-somethings.
Elsewhere in the BBC, Radio 4 was up 600,000 listeners from this time last year, while Radio 5 saw a slump of 900,000 from last quarter – returning to normal after its World Cup peak in the early summer.
Elsewhere in the commercial radio world Capital did get some good news as alternative station Xfm achieved an all time high increasing audience share in London from 2.4% to 3.8% - the acquisition of former Radio 1 talents Kevin Greening and Zoe Ball seemingly paying off. Classic FM continued its unstoppable rise building its audience for a 14th consecutive quarter, now attracting 6.7 million per week.