Radio 2016: The 10 facts you need to know

2016 Summary

2016 has been the year of the audio revolution with the industry steeling itself for the future and investing heavily into where they see growth – their digital assets. By introducing the new D2 platform and new radio stations (including Virgin Radio, Heart Xtra, talkSPORT2, talkRADIO), the industry is ensuring that there is plenty of scope for this investment.

Looking at the listening figures, radio is in a stronger position than ever with not only a greater number of listeners tuning in year on year (+ 0.67%), but a greater number of listeners tuning in over the last decade (+0.83%). Could this be due to the proliferation of accessible and relevant brands? We also know that listeners are identifying with presenters more than ever, especially the younger audience who enjoy receiving updates from their favourite radio station or presenters – this high percentage could have been influenced by the increase in celebrity presenters which appeal to a younger audience such as Marvin Humes on Capital (former member of JLS), Mark Wright (former TOWIE star) and Emma Bunton (former member of Spice Girls) on Heart.

The biggest change that radio has faced is the way that listeners tune into radio, with Digital Radio continuing to take a higher share of platform listening. Because of this, more and more media owners are becoming more canny in their digital audio offerings. For example, DAX are developing 3D audio and personalisation of ads, with Spotify also developing 3D and creating a planning tool to provide agencies with incremental reach when adding Spotify to an existing radio plan, and even RadioPlayer are getting in on the action by partnering with Amazon Echo – an app where you can ask a voice assistant (named Alexa) to recommend a radio station on the RadioPlayer, asking her to skip and move to the next recommendation, until satisfied!

With this investment from the media owners, it will be interesting to see how this will help accelerate the growth of share of platform.

Top 10 facts

1. 48.2 million adults or 89% of the adult (15+) UK population tuned in to their selected radio stations each week in the third quarter of 2016. This is up by approximately 320,000 adults on the same Quarter of the previous Year (Q3, 2015).

2. In Q3 2016 the total average number of weekly hours listened to on commercial radio was 476,000. This is up 5% YoY.

3. Heart Network is the biggest commercial radio brand within the UK with 9.1 million listeners tuning in every week.

4. In 2016 News Corp announced its £220m acquisition of Wireless Group (owners of talkSPORT and Virgin Radio). Robert Thomson, chief executive of News Corp, said: “This acquisition eloquently illustrates our belief in the United Kingdom as a place to invest and do business. The strength of Wireless, with its digital and international capabilities, especially in sports coverage, will help our publishing brands engage with readers and advertisers”

5. The share of all radio listening via a digital platform now stands at 45.5%. The digital share is comprised of DAB share 32.3%, DTV 5.2% and listening Online or App 8.0%.

6. The Sound Digital (D2) launch in March brought 18 national stations to digital radio including several new stations, giving listener and advertisers even more variety and choice.

7. RAJAR Q3 2016 reports that eight of the top 10 digital stations were part of the Bauer network with the two largest being KISSTORY and Absolute 80’s.

8. 24 million or 44% of the UK population have downloaded a Radio brand’s app including 5.3million (67%) of 1524s and 5.3 million (59%) of 2543s.

9. 43% of 15-24 year old Social Media users claim to receive updates about their favourite Radio Station/Presenter.

10. Radioplayer is now used by over 400 stations across the UK, with more than 6million people listening every month. Michael Hill (MD of Radioplayer) recently spoke about how voice control is one of the big emerging technology trends in radio with developments enabling listeners to play a station of their choice and ask for recommendations . “We’re going to take what we’ve learned about ‘VUX’ (Voice User eXperience’) and extend it to other Radioplayer products in 2017 – including our apps and our new hardware product for cars