`Thanks for Tuning In'
2012 was a pretty unusual year in the world of radio, there were several momentous and unique events which disrupted the normal flow of listener behaviour. Maybe we were pushed towards other media or distracted elsewhere meaning we had less time to devote to our usual routines, an area in which radio plays a prominent role.
The latest set of results released by RAJAR on 31st January 2013 seems to indicate that this was nothing more than a blip, the last three months of the year were a pretty good period for radio – all radio listening is back up to 90% and is over 47 million listeners each week for the first time since the third quarter of 2011.
On top of this good news, the major talking point this release is likely to be the official verdict on the transition of Radio 1 Breakfast Show host. As was well publicised, Chris Moyles concluded his long stint in the prime time slot at the end of 2012 and was replaced by Nick Grimshaw. It’s been quite an eventful first period for Grimshaw – plenty of talk on Twitter and in the press, bans on certain records, celebrities offering their view, even an appearance on stage at the Radio Festival, but we are now down to the serious stuff – the official audience figures.
So, what’s happened? First, Moyles – his final RAJAR reported a reasonably low 6.73 million listeners a week. Not exactly going out with a bang, but let’s not forget that this equates to 13% of the UK population. The first period for Grimshaw has him with 6.69 million listeners, this doesn’t really represent much of a difference all told. There are many reasons for audiences to change when there is a format change, I expect there will be a fair number of curious trialists, who, as I did, have dipped in and out of the Grimshaw show just to get a feel for what he’s doing differently and to make up their own mind and so on. In the context that Radio 1 has seen a decline overall (losing around 7.25m hours since last quarter, while reach has fallen very slightly to the lowest for a while), the continuation of the breakfast show audience at its Moyles level isn’t a bad result at all.
One of the key reasons for installing Nick Grimshaw was an attempt to reduce the average age of the Radio 1 listener which had been stubbornly sat at 32, a side effect of this was always likely to be a decline in listener numbers from the older end of the scale, at least in the first instance. However, already there does seem to have been a slight shift here too, Chris Moyles’ final breakfast show audience had an average age of 32.4 years, Nick Grimshaw has brought this down to 31.9 (based on listeners aged 10+). Again, not really enough of a difference to be proclaimed as a completed mission, but the indicators are that it could be a successful move.
However, this is just one quarter, the BBC will be hoping of course that as Grimshaw develops, his audience will follow. Fortunately, we have a precedent to reference from the not too distant past, the BBC have had a similar change of high profile, popular and long standing presenter Terry Wogan was replaced by Chris Evans. Worth noting though that there were different reasons behind this change and also, different results. When Wogan left on 18th December 2009, his show was reaching 8.72m people every week, Evans’s first RAJAR increased this to 9.18m. However, after this initial surge, audience levels did drop a little for a couple of quarters, hovering around 8.6m to 8.8m listeners. Radio 1 will be hoping that rather than dropping, Grimshaw pulls in a new and larger audience.
As an aside to this, I have wondered if the change at Radio 1 may have had a positive effect on Radio 2. Is it just a co-incidence that in the period when Radio 1 has lost listeners through deliberately making changes to station personnel, Radio 2 has hit an all time high? This quarter, Radio 2 has added 1.2m listeners, passing 15 million for the first time, and also added 23.4m hours. In particular, Chris Evans has recorded a massive 9.52m listeners, his largest audience by some 300,000. Could it be that the older Radio 1 listener has moved over to Radio 2 in the face of a new format on Radio 1?
It’s difficult to draw any conclusions at this point, long term trends are of more interest in this case. The BBC will no doubt be hoping, if not expecting, Grimshaw to draw in and keep younger listeners over future releases with the knock-on effect of further reducing the average age of listeners to the station. If they can do this while keeping listeners within the BBC portfolio, then the change is likely to be heralded as a success.
