It All Comes Together in London

Quarter 3 2011 data was released by RAJAR in the early hours of this morning. There are some stories out there which have been widely picked up on. For example, total listening hours are up 2% compared to the equivalent quarter last year and Radio 4 has lost 300,000 of the listeners from last quarter’s record breaking results. It’s also been a good quarter for digital listening – for the first time more than 300 million hours were recorded on a digital platform, that equates to 28.2% of all radio hours and a reasonable increase from the 26.9% of last quarter.

As a quick round up of station results there’s the usual ups and downs – BBC Radios 1 (+158,000) and 2 (+343,000) have increased their reach over the last three months while BBC Radios 3 (-122,000) and 5 (-305,000) have seen their weekly reach drop slightly on last quarter to balance that out. In the commercial sector, the GMG brands have fared well with marginal increases in reach – Total Real Radio (+44,000) and Smooth Radio UK (+118,000). Digital only station Absolute 80s also improved its audience (+124,000). Meanwhile Classic FM (-347,000) and the Magic Network (-228,000) see declines in reach.

The Commercial market in London has also thrown up a result that is worthy of further comment. It’s not unusual for things to change at the top of the ultra competitive market. Magic, Heart and Capital have been battling it out for years. However what is unusual this quarter is that for the first time in years, the range of hours, and therefore market share has converged to a near single point. True, there have been occasions in the past when two of the three stations have come together, but this time the difference between first and third is a mere 470,000 hours or 0.2% market share. Consider that last quarter there were just under 3 million hours between first and third and as recently as Q4 2010 over 3.5 million separated the top three, this is quite a marked closing of the gap.

Last quarter Magic 105.4 reported the highest hours with a decent lead over Heart and Capital. However, the Global stations have come back strongly. Although Capital remain third (12.659m hours), the addition of 1.6 million hours on Quarter 2 has seen them make up ground on Magic who are now second (12.663m). The gap between the two has reduced from 3 million hours to just 4,000 in the space of three months. This leaves Heart London to move to the top of the hours chart, adding 1.25m hours on Quarter 2 to post 13.1 million hours in Quarter 3.

The chart below demonstrates just how competitive the market is, and how often the lead changes hands: