- Bauer Media achieves commercial share of 25.8% up 4.4% on the year.
- Magic 105.4 celebrates two years at Number One in London with 6% share – a clear 1% share above its closest competitor.
- Kiss beats all commercial and BBC stations to own 15-34s in London – Rickie and Melvin take breakfast to highest reach in six years.
- Listening up 24% at Sony Station of the Year, Key 103.
Bauer Media today announced an impressive set of RAJAR results with year on year gains across its portfolio, with over 12.4 million people listening to a Bauer radio station each week. Bauer Media added an extra 4 million hours over the same quarter in 2007.
In London, Magic 105.4 is celebrating two full years as market leader. The more music less talk station is number one by all measures - reach, hours and share. Magic 105.4 has an impressive 6% market share – a full 1% ahead of its nearest commercial rival, Heart 106.2.
Kiss 100, London’s dance station, reaches more 15-24s, more 15-34s and more 15-44s than any other radio station in London and continues to dominate amongst its target 15-34 year old listeners. Kiss now reaches 1.57million listeners, up 10.5% year on year.
In London’s closely fought breakfast battle, both Neil Fox and Rickie and Melvin showed positive gains. Over 813,000 Londoners tune in to Neil Fox, an increase of 86,000 listeners on the quarter. At Magic’s sister station Kiss, Rickie and Melvin now attract an audience of 722,000, up 140,000 on the quarter, their highest ever reach, and the best showing for Kiss at breakfast for six years.
Across the Big City Network (BCN), Bauer Media continues to deliver great local content which is central to our strategy resulting in gains in key markets. Listening at Key 103, currently Sony Station of the Year was up 24% and the best results in five years were recorded from Downtown in Belfast and Viking in Hull. Clyde 1, Glasgow’s number one station increased reach to 592,000 and is now more than twice the size of its nearest rival. During Liverpool’s City of Culture year, Radio City reached 457,000 Merseyside listeners, up 9.4% on the year. Radio City’s sister station, City Talk 105.9 in its first RAJAR reported a weekly audience of 63,000 people, with listeners tuning in for an average of 5.6 hours, which is longer than anticipated. In Q4 2008, 41.8 million hours of excellent content is delivered every week to more than 4.6m loyal listeners across BCN, an increase in hours of 5% over the same quarter in 2007.
As well as delivering award-winning radio to local audiences, Bauer Media continues to lead the way in national digital radio networks with five of the top ten stations. The Hits and Smash Hits are still the first and second most listened to digital radio stations. Heat grew its reach by more than 20% to 465,000 listeners, now placing it firmly in the top ten.
Dee Ford, Group MD Radio, at Bauer Media, said: “These are superb RAJAR results. I’d like to say well done to the team at Magic 105.4 - celebrating a full two years at number one and recording a full one percent share between the station and its nearest competitor. Another set of solid performances from our Big City stations demonstrates that our investment in localness strategy is the right approach. We have had great success in our key markets, particularly at Key 103, which recorded a 24% increase in listening. We continue to dominate digital with The Hits and Smash Hits and have seen excellent growth at heat.”
Ends
Source: RAJAR / Ipsos-MORI / RSMB, period ending December 2008, all radio stations and groups results are reported on their specified reporting period and TSA.
Further information: Jane Windsor at Bauer Media, jane.windsor@bauermedia.co.uk, or Hermione or Polly at Braben on 0207 566 2990 or firstname@braben.co.uk
For radio advertising opportunities across Bauer Media's portfolio of radio stations please visit www.bauermedia.co.uk/radio
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