Kiss and Tell

THE SOUNDS OF SUCCESS 19 June 2009

Kiss' head of research Mark Crawford explains to us why Radio listening is booming in London.

In the competitive, cut throat world of Media we are normally led to believe that a brand’s success comes at the expense of its competitor. So, for radio station A to do well it will come at the expense of radio station B.

To some extent this is true - people have a finite amount of time each day and you can’t listen to two stations at once. However, the last set of Rajar figures seemed to defy this thinking. The big 4 commercial stations in London (Heart, Capital, Magic and Kiss) all increased reach fairly significantly, as did Radio 1 and Radio 2.  In such a contested and congested marketplace how was it possible for all boats to be floated at once and for all the big players to come out of Rajar fairly satisfied?

The first things to eliminate are methodology and seasonality. There was no change to the traditional Rajar methodology to explain the success and even though Q1 is a traditionally stronger quarter than Q4, all the stations (bar Radio 2) were up significantly on the same period last year. So something else is happening. An initial area to examine is the broader Commercial Radio marketplace. From Q4 2008 to Q1 2009 All Commercial Radio listening in London increased from 7,492,000 to 7,678,000. That’s not a huge gain, only 2%, but it does add 186,000 new listeners into the market place as well as being the highest reach All Commercial Radio has recorded in London for 18 months. Reach for the combined group of Heart, Capital, Magic and Kiss was actually up 8% so it does seem that there are new and/or lapsed listeners also coming back into the marketplace. This is understandable given that in the last 6 months or so, for the first time in a long time, Heart, Capital and Magic have all spent a great deal on advertising at the same time. Whilst that shows that commercial radio as a whole is in good health it doesn’t explain how such fierce competitors can all put on listeners but not at the expense of each other. To understand that we need to understand how people’s listening behaviour in general is changing.

One key thing that we believe is driving this win win scenario for the top 4 commercial stations is that listeners seem to be increasingly listening to, and trialling, more stations outside of their traditional repertoire. Over the last 3 quarters the number of stations the average London radio listener listens to each week has increased from 2.5 to 2.6 to 2.7. Over that period Magic listeners have gone from listening to 4 stations to 4.1, Kiss listeners from 4.1 stations to 4.4, Heart listeners from 4.1 stations to 4.3 and Capital listeners from 4 stations to 4.2. Only small increases perhaps but indicative of a greater listener behaviour considering that Magic, Kiss, Capital and Heart are all well established London stations, all playing relatively different formats to different target audiences. So why could all their listeners be displaying similar patterns of behaviour?

Last year the Insight team at Bauer Media undertook a huge music survey (Project Phoenix­) questioning nearly 2,000 16-45 yr olds about their attitudes to music. One of the key findings that came out of the project was that people’s tastes in music were getting more varied. Across the whole sample 86% said that their music tastes had got broader over the last few years. What was interesting was that this was a social trend cutting through all age groups; it was also 86% for 16-18 year olds and the same for 41-45 year olds. This expansion of consumption is being driven by the sheer accessibility of music nowadays. We have never had more radio stations, TV channels and music websites through which to consume new music, or to try unfamiliar genres. And there have never been more ways to spread that music peer to peer. Radio fits at the very core of this growth. It has always been the most portable and adaptable of all Mediums and that function has grown in recent years. In the last 2 years alone people listening via the internet has increased by 21% whilst listening to the radio via their mobile has increased by 65%. And if you’re really up with your technology you can now listen to Kiss shows you might have missed via our online radio player on your Iphone or Ipod Touch (Kiss Kube) It’s never been easier to listen to the radio.

With broader tastes people are willing to explore different stations and try a variety of music genres. And the fact that Heart, Magic, Capital and Kiss are clearly defined stations, with degrees of difference between them, means that people can go to those stations and get the musical hit that they want, at the time they want it. For example it may surprise you to know that 26% of Magic listeners also listen to Kiss. Obviously though music is only one element and how you serve those new listeners with content unique to your station still has to be key when it comes to retaining them.

To put it in a Kiss 100 context you only have to look at the success of Rickie and Melvin last quarter. In the last Rajar they pulled in the largest ever breakfast show audience in the history of Kiss 100; bigger than Steve Jackson, bigger than Bam Bam and bigger than Robin Banks. So whilst music is crucial the traditional cornerstones of Radio still hold true – good content will be rewarded with good audiences. Time will tell whether the trend for people trialling new stations will continue but at the moment it is breathing life into the commercial radio market in London.