Radio loses 90,000 listeners in Scotland

Published on Thursday 1 May 2008 22:13

SCOTLAND's radio stations lost tens of thousands of listeners last year.

Of the 28 stations listed in the Radio Joint Audience Research (Rajar) figures, listening figures fell at 25 of them.

Fife-based Kingdom FM was the biggest loser with a 28.2 per cent drop. Edinburgh's troubled Talk 107 had the next-biggest fall with 23.3 per cent fewer tuning in than last year.

Even the BBC, whose overall UK audience increased, saw a 4.5 per cent drop in its Radio Scotland share.

Overall, radio listeners in Scotland fell by 2.4 per cent to 3.68 million this year from 3.79 million – a drop of almost 90,000.

Commercial radio had a slight edge over the BBC in Scotland, with total audiences of 2.65 million, compared with 2.51 million.

Overall, UK-wide listening to all radio stations was up by 0.8 per cent. The BBC had an increase of 2.3 per cent. BBC Radio 5 Live was up 2.5 per cent but BBC Radio 4 was down 0.8 per cent.

Andrew Jones, media lecturer at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, said commercial radio stations were struggling in a crowded market for music.

He said: "Traditional listening in Scotland has been skewed towards commercial radio brands such as Forth, Clyde and Northsound and all of these markets are gradually fragmenting.

"For example, in Aberdeen there's a new radio station, Original, and in the Central Belt, Real Radio has been quite successful at eroding the core audience from Forth and Clyde.

"These big radio stations together are really struggling to challenge the BBC, and in particularly Radios One and Two."

He also said commercial radio struggled because it depended on music rather than sport or current affairs.

He said: "The problem for commercial radio is people are listening to other things such as the internet, where you can listen to radio stations from all over the world. And many are choosing to listen on their MP3 player rather than the radio.

"A lot of younger people no longer listen to the radio in the way previous generations did and that's a really big challenge."

He said commercial stations would have to look at working together to share content and keep quality high in order to retain listeners.

A spokesman for Talk 107 said the figures were not cause for concern and the station hoped to see an increase in the next quarter. The station hit the headlines with a raft of high-profile sackings including former socialist MSP Tommy Sheridan.

The spokesman said: "Over the last four or five months we conducted extensive research and have acted on that to change the sound and look of the station, injecting more humour and a style of debate which people want.

"We are happy we have stayed steady with a 1.2 per cent market share. Obviously, the changes implemented in both the sound and presentation in March won't be reflected in the latest reported Rajar figures."

According to Rajar, 45.3 million adults listen to UK radio stations every week, up 445,000 from the previous quarter. Almost a third of adults listen to radio via a digital platform every week, with digital "listening hours" up 9 per cent.

Rajar interviewed 130,000 adults and 5,000 children over 50 weeks to compile its data.