It’s back after 18 months. For a comprehensive round-up, do take a look at what Matt Deegan and Adam Bowie have written.
With more of us working from home and getting up later, we’ve expected the 8am breakfast peak to shift later and for home listening to further surpass in-car/workplace consumption. The latest data reflect this.
We can also see a pattern - daytime listening has increased and holds more steady. Listeners are still choosing radio, it’s just where they listen that’s changed.
Digital listening - including DAB/internet/digital TV - has jumped to 65.8% (up from 58.6%). Looking at devices, DAB is the most popular platform with a 43% share of all listening (up from 40.2%).
Analogue (AM/FM) now accounts for 34.2% (down from 41.4%) with the internet at 18.1% (up from 14%). Smart-speakers are a key factor here - and analogue’s decline is a device switch accelerated by COVID.
Turning to demographics, while 15-24 reach hasn’t fallen dramatically overall (there’s been a gradual decline) hours have taken a bigger hit once again. See Matt’s analysis for further details.
Regarding new stations, it was a very impressive debut in the survey for Boom Radio and Times Radio which reach 233k and 637k listeners each week respectively.
On new national brand roll-outs, the total reach for all GHR’s new frequencies hasn’t declined dramatically and hours remain the same.
While the strong heritage ILR stations have lost audience, as expected - but still not as much as many had predicted - the lesser performing stations (or group!) first acquired by Bauer two years ago area a far more attractive product now than they ever were before. As Matt Deegan says:
Older audiences have always been more voracious consumers of radio.
These latest data continues to prove that point.
What percentage of the heritage ILR, INR or BBC audience is actually engaged? Are they just listening because they always have? Do they just consider their chosen station to be the least worst option?
Perhaps this explains little change following the rebrand as Greatest Hits Radio - and maybe those older audiences actually prefer it to what was there before.
The success of new entrant Boom, amongst other stats, shows there’s clearly an appetite for stations super-serving older demographics - stations that aren’t desperately trying to drive new younger ones that they’ll struggle to attract.
I know we’re not really supposed to be drawing quarterly or yearly comparisons yet - but where's the fun in not having a go?
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