So, the latest RAJAR radio listening figures were out yesterday, and here's what you need to know...
Terry Wogan enjoyed a very good last quarter in 2009, though all the hype about his pending retirement from the Radio 2 breakfast show probably helped. His audience went over 8 million in the last quarter, equalling his previous best-ever ratings score, and putting him a good million ahead of Chris Moyles on Radio 1. That puts an awful lot of pressure on poor old Chris Evans, who will almost inevitably suffer an initial ratings slump given the differences in his and Wogan's presenting style. It remains to be seen how big that slump is once this quarter's figures are out later in the year, and how likely it is Evans can recover once he starts to build his own breakfast fan base.
Elsewhere at the Beeb, Jonathan Ross saw his Radio 2 audience fall year on year from 3.08 million to 2.94 million. That'll perversely please BBC bosses, who got some stick for losing Ross' radio show as well as his TV output when the two parties decided not to renew the presenter's always controversial contract. Still, I think we all know all things Ross have been in decline for some time. 2.94 million isn't to be sniffed at, but it's going to be an awful lot easier to replace Ross than it was to fill Terry Wogan's former slot.
In station ratings news, all eyes were on digital services, which have been generally growing their audiences in recent years. BBC digital services Radio 7 and 6Music were both up - the latter up 11.4% on the previous quarter and 12.3% year on year, a good showing and hopefully enough to convince the people doing the BBC Trust review of the music station's operations that it should continue in its current vein (though I'm pretty sure Facebook chatter that the BBC are considering closing 6Music is pretty baseless).
Digital jazz service Jazz FM also did well, but elsewhere in the world of digital radio things looked more gloomy, with all other digital only services seeing a decline in listeners, which wasn't really expected. Bauer's Heat, Q and The Hits radio services all saw their audiences fall both year on year and quarter on quarter, while NME Radio, although up 16.4% year on year, saw audience fall 18.8% on the previous quarter. Which is possibly a sign that more digital savvy radio listeners are spending more time using streaming music services like Spotify than tuning into digital only radio stations.
In terms of the analogue commercial stations, Absolute Radio saw its overall audience decline, though audience share remained steady. TalkSport had a good quarter though, growing its market share from 1.8% to 2.1%. Classic FM saw its audience fall 10% year on year, though it is still the biggest commercial station, with an average weekly audience of 5.13 million.
In London, good news for Global Radio which saw its two music stations Capital FM and Heart take the top two spots in terms of audience size, though Bauer-owned rival Magic was biggest in terms of market share. Interestingly it was a good quarter for Global's talk station LBC, which was second in terms of market share.
And here ends our RAJAR round up. Do remember radio listening figures are not the most accurate thing in the world, and many rises and falls could be accounted for by margins of error. Which possibly defeats the point of us even reviewing the data, but look, we've done it now.
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