RADIO RULES! DIGITAL-ONLY STATIONS DRIVE DIGITAL MOMENTUM.

24th October 2013 Adam Rayner

This is just in from Digital Radio UK, the guys who are the straight men to D Love’s ‘˜Hey There Sweet Cheeks’ message. We have been seeing far more of my Soul Brother From Another Mother lately and I am still assured that I am due to be able to interview him one day. I need to know what model of Ford he was conceived in and to which Barry White track. I know which rec ground car park it was Anyway, the delight of digital-only radio stations so cool that you really want to listen to them in the car as well as indoors on the increasingly ubiquitous home DAB receivers, has driven folks to WANT digital radio in their cars. And here, slightly like muesli with only a little skim milkare the latest facts:
51% of the population tunes in via a digital platform each week, up 13% year on year
Digital listening hours up 14% year on year from 320 million to 366 million
Impressive first reach figures for Kisstory and Kiss Fresh, and strong performances from digital-only stations including Kiss, Absolute 80s, Smooth and BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra
Digital listening now 35.6%, up 14% year on year from 31.3%
DAB is the most popular device for digital listening (65% of all digital hours) and 24 million adults have access to a DAB digital radio, up 10% year on year
All platforms show growth in hours, with DAB up 13% year on year, online/apps up 37% and DTV up 7%.
The share of analogue listening in home is below 50%, at 49.7%.
Listening via a digital platform is up 13% year on year in terms of reach, with 51% of the population now tuning in each week (27 million people), according to the Q3 2013 Rajar data released today. Digital listening hours are up 14% year on year, from 320 million in Q3 2012 to 366 million in Q3 2013.
This growth has been driven by increasing choice and strong performances from digital-only stations. BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra showed a 51% increase in listeners year on year to over 1.5 million listeners, driven by the popularity of the Ashes coverage. Kiss showed an increase of over 50% in the number of people listening via a digital platform, while Kiss Fresh and Kisstory showed impressive debuts with 857,000 listeners and 854,000 listeners respectively in their first-ever Rajar quarter. Decade stations also performed well, with Absolute 80s up 35% year on year to 1.2 million listeners, and Absolute Radio 90s up 20% over the same period to 522,000 listeners. New digital only stations continue to launch the most recent being Capital XTRA earlier this month.
Individual station performance reflects itself in total hours of listening on Digital One (the national commercial multiplex), with total hours of listening to national commercial stations increasing by over 23% year on year. BBC 6 Music is the no.1 BBC digital-only station, and Absolute 80s is the no.1 commercial digital-only station.
Digital listening share is up 14% year on year from 31.3% to 35.6%. It showed a slight decline quarter on quarter, which also occurred in the summer quarter of 2012. All digital platforms showed growth, with DAB hours up 13% year on year, online/apps up 37% and DTV up 7%.
DAB is the most popular device for digital listening – 65% of all digital hours. 24 million adults have access to a DAB digital radio, up 10% year on year.
The increased choice and popularity of digital stations is reflected in share of analogue listening in the home, which is below 50% (49.7%).
Ford Ennals, CEO of Digital Radio UK, says: ‘This quarter shows excellent digital station performance, with outstanding growth from Kiss and debut figures for Kisstory, strong growth from decade stations and BBC Radio 5 Live over the summer. Digital radio offers listeners a wide and increasing range of station choice and the popularity of these stations has bought about a fundamental shift in listening with listening to analogue stations in home now being less than 50%.’
Steve Parkinson, Managing Director, Bauer Media London Radio, says: ‘It’s a great day for Team Kiss. Kiss Group PD Andy Roberts has been crafting the three digitally-driven flavours of Kiss KissFMUK, Kiss Fresh and Kisstory over this last quarter. To have seen such a leap in reach and engagement so quickly is a demonstration of our audience understanding and our ability to deliver great content, on whichever platforms our listeners want.’
Donnach O’Driscoll, CEO of Absolute Radio, says: ‘Over 75% of our audience is already digital and more people than ever are listening to our great digital services including Absolute 80s, Absolute Radio 90s and Absolute Radio 60s. We are also seeing huge increases in our internet listening, up from 9.0% to 13.6% in one quarter. More and more of our audience continues to go digital, which is brilliant.’