Analysis of latest RAJAR press release with inflated claims about UK radio listening data, written by Grant Goddard in May 2011 for Grant Goddard: Radio Blog.

1. WHEN THE LATEST UK RADIO
LISTENING DATA ARE THIS
GOOD, WHY DOES THE RAJAR
PRESS RELEASE NEED TO FIB?
by
GRANT GODDARD
www.grantgoddard.co.uk
May 2011

2. It is good to know that radio is still an extremely popular medium in the UK, something borne
out by the latest radio audience metrics published by industry body RAJAR for Q1 2011.
However, in its determination to make every quarter’s results newsworthy, RAJAR has a track
record of bending the truth to achieve press headlines [see my blog May 2010]. This latest
quarter was no exception.
According to the RAJAR headline:
 “Total radio listening hours reach 1,058 million per week – new record.”^
RAJAR explained:
 “The total number of radio listening hours broke all previous records to reach 1,058
hours per week …”^
Fantastic news! Except that this is not at all true. RAJAR’s own historical data tell a different
story:
 1,088 million hours per week in Q2 2001
 1,092 million hours per week in Q3 2001
 1,092 million hours per week in Q4 2001
 1,090 million hours per week in Q1 2002
 1,072 million hours per week in Q4 2002
 1,094 million hours per week in Q1 2003
 1,066 million hours per week in Q3 2003
 1,076 million hours per week in Q4 2003
 1,086 million hours per week in Q1 2004
 1,072 million hours per week in Q2 2004
 1,068 million hours per week in Q3 2004
 1,059 million hours per week in Q1 2005
 1,068 million hours per week in Q2 2005
 1,072 million hours per week in Q3 2005
 1,060 million hours per week in Q4 2005
 1,063 million hours per week in Q3 2006.
During sixteen quarters between 2001 and 2006, total hours listened to radio were greater
than they were last quarter. “New record?” No. “Broke all records?” Er, no.
The reality is that total radio listening has not yet returned to the level it had achieved in 2001.
Except that, ten years ago, the UK adult population was 48.1 million, whereas now it is 51.6
million. So the population has increased by 7% over the last decade. Yet total UK radio
listening is still less than it was then.
When The Latest UK Radio Listening Data Are This Good, Why Does The RAJAR Press Release Need To Fib?
page 2
©2011 Grant Goddard

3. Most statisticians I know would refer to that as a like-for-like 7% decline in total hours listened
to radio. However, to RAJAR, it is evidently a “new record” that “broke all previous records.”
Why does any of this matter? Because radio broadcasters have been progressively losing
usage over most of the last decade. Initially, it was 15-24 year olds that were spending less
time with radio. Increasingly, it is also 25-34 year olds. For a decade, the UK radio industry has
desperately needed a coherent strategy to reverse this loss of listening. The decline in young
adult listening to broadcast radio does not merely impact the NOW. If these consumers do not
find anything in their youth worth listening to on the radio, they will grow old without the radio
habit. Their radio listening patterns NOW are likely to influence radio listening for the next half-
century.
This is why RAJAR’s continuing efforts to achieve yet another headline in 'The Daily Mail'
proclaiming “Radio listening at an all time high” are ultimately redundant. Those headlines do
not impact the reality of the data collected from tens of thousands of radio listeners every
month. Those data show incontrovertibly that listening is in significant long-term decline
amongst younger demographics. And radio will be in mortal danger if it does not re-invent itself
for the next generation.
You only have to listen to any pirate radio station in London to understand that the gulf
between what young people are actually listening to and what the old fogies who run UK radio
are giving them has never been wider. Chris Moyles is as passé as Dave Lee Travis was
twenty years ago.
So, yes, RAJAR’s fibs and the resulting Daily Mail headline will be another opportunity for
champagne corks to pop in radio boardrooms across the land. But if radio doesn’t start making
itself exciting and relevant to young people, broadcast radio’s future role will be relegated to a
soundtrack in old people’s homes. Complacency such as that propagated by RAJAR will only
make many radio businesses redundant in the long run.
^ in a footnote this small, the RAJAR press release admits the caveat “since new methodology was introduced in Q2,
2007.”
[First published by Grant Goddard: Radio Blog as 'When UK Radio Listening Figures Are This Good, Why Does
RAJAR Need To Fib?', 14 May 2011.]
When The Latest UK Radio Listening Data Are This Good, Why Does The RAJAR Press Release Need To Fib?
page 3
©2011 Grant Goddard

4. When The Latest UK Radio Listening Data Are This Good, Why Does The RAJAR Press Release Need To Fib?
page 4
©2011 Grant Goddard
Grant Goddard is a media analyst / radio specialist / radio consultant with thirty years of
experience in the broadcasting industry, having held senior management and consultancy
roles within the commercial media sector in the United Kingdom, Europe and Asia. Details at
http://www.grantgoddard.co.uk