The latest RAJAR figures were released earlier today and reveal that Bauer Radio reaches over 13.3 million listeners every week (over 20% of all adults in the UK), up 61,000 on a year ago, as our tailored content strategy continues to drive results.
Overall, we delivered a consistent and solid RAJAR performance across the country. Both Place and Passion Portfolios have increased their reach year on year to 8.8m and 6.3m respectively, with stand-out results in some of the most important radio markets in the UK.
We believe strongly in the power of building personal relationships with our listeners, and the continued year-on-year growth of our Place and Passion portfolios gives further evidence that our strategy is working. Bauer is connecting and interacting with more listeners and more advertisers by championing local talent and tailor made programming for our Place Portfolio stations, as well as investing further in our digital teams to create greater engagement from our Passion stations, with Smash Hits and The Hits reclaiming the commercial number 1 and 2 digital only station positions.
The Bauer Place Portfolio retains its commercial number one position for reach and share in 20 of our 21 markets. With each listener tuning in for an average of 8.2 hours every week we now have a total of nearly 72m listening hours. This compares well to our largest networked commercial competitor, Heart, whom we beat on every measure. We have 18% higher reach, 35% more hours and our listeners listen for 15% longer. This is powerful evidence that our strategy of carefully crafted and tailor made content is the most effective way to delight and better engage listeners for our advertisers.
Flagship station Magic 105.4 had very strong results in our most fiercely fought market, with reach increasing 5.7% (yoy). The station had an exciting end to 2011 with a major TV advertising campaign, a three-month series of weekly shows from Canadian superstar Michael Buble, and our £100,000 prize competition ‘Magic Mystery Voices’.
In terms of reach, Magic 105.4 has now beaten BBC Radio 2 four times and Heart eight times in the last three years.
Major local events and initiatives helped drive the success in some of our key regional markets, including;
• Key 103, Manchester – a 12.6% rise in reach (yoy). The station now enjoys the biggest lead over its nearest commercial rival since Q4 2008. Highlight activities included the 14,000 sell out Jingle Ball Live at the MEN Arena with JLS, Ed Sheeran and Olly Murs.
• Radio City, Liverpool – an 8.3% rise in reach (yoy). Key activities included Radio City Live’s sold-out show at the Liverpool Echo Arena featuring The Wanted and Jason Derulo.
• Metro Radio, Newcastle - a 7.8% rise in reach (yoy). Key activities included the ‘£1m of Work’ campaign, which stimulated the local job market, and is continuing to be backed by Sir Richard Branson.
• Forth One, Edinburgh – a stellar performance with a 25.4% increase in reach (yoy) and hours up 35.5% (yoy). Key activities included more investment in the annual Radio Forth Awards, with performances by Pixie Lott and Matt Cardle.
• Cool FM, Belfast – has just recorded its highest ever audience in its 22-year history with a reach of 430,000 or 44% within its TSA. This superb performance was aided by a partnership with the MTV EMA awards in Belfast, where the station was able to broadcast exclusively from the red carpet as stars such as Lady Gaga arrived for the event.
Across Scotland yet again, every one of our stations is the number one in the marketplace for both reach and share. We also enjoy the number one commercial breakfast show in every market we serve.
The Bauer Passion Portfolio, the home of Bauer’s passionate, iconic brands dedicated to music and lifestyle, increased its reach to 6.3m listeners around the UK and increased both total hours listened and average hours per listener.
Flagship youth station Kiss headlines the Bauer Passion Portfolio, and returned another strong set of results. Reach increased 5.8% (yoy) to 4.2m listeners across the UK, with stand-out results yet again for Rickie, Melvin & Charlie in the Morning breakfast show, with reach up 10% (yoy), now reaching 1.54 million listeners. In London, the Kiss Breakfast Show reaches 25% more 15-34 year olds than BBC Radio 1’s Chris Moyles. Q4 highlights for Kiss included the “All I Want For Kissmas” marketing campaign, fronted by Father Kissmas, which resulted in registrations up 62% yoy to over 150,000 entries.
Within the Portfolio, heat radio also saw a 16.3% (yoy) increase in reach, and an excellent result for this multi-platform brand.
Our strong focus and continued investment is driving our multi-platform offering for listeners as well as advertisers, and is reflected in our online and social media numbers. Each month 2.15m fans visit Bauer’s radio websites, with Key 103’s website experiencing an 800% increase in traffic in Q4 2011 following the Jingle Ball Live event. We now have 1.25m fans that follow a Bauer station on Facebook and the Bauer Twitter following now stands at 250,000.
My congratulations extend once again to all our hard-working and dedicated teams across our whole business – we can look forward collectively to an undoubtedly challenging, but hugely rewarding, 2012.
Dee Ford
Thursday 2 February 2012
For the full RAJAR results click here
