Latest RAJARs

[Paul Sherratt]

"Radio 3's job is to enrich Britain's cultural fabric"

It most certainly did last night, imo, when Anne Hilde Neset presented Thursday's edition of 'Late Junction'

And it's really about time programmes like this were broadcast at a more reasonable hour.



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[Russ]

A rather good set of R3 results for 2014 Q1, although perhaps they could not have got much worse than the previous quarter. 2014 Q1's reach of 2087k is 4.8% up on the previous quarter, and the hours listened to, at 13855k, is a whopping 24.5% up on the previous quarter. Average weekly hours per listener, at 6.6, equalled one of the best in recent years. R3 breakfast listening rose significantly to 673k.

Russ

[french frank]

A rather good set of R3 results for 2014 Q1, although perhaps they could not have got much worse than the previous quarter. 2014 Q1's reach of 2087k is 4.8% up on the previous quarter, and the hours listened to, at 13855k, is a whopping 24.5% up on the previous quarter. Average weekly hours per listener, at 6.6, equalled one of the best in recent years. R3 breakfast listening rose significantly to 673k.

That's the good news! As you say, last quarter was pretty terrible, so there is half a story there, and to be fair, the BBC Press Office isn't trumpeting success:

"Radio 3 has a weekly audience of 2.09 million listeners – compared to 1.99m last quarter and 2.16m last year. The network’s share is 1.3%, from 1.1% last quarter and 1.3% last year."

As the figures show they are still down on this quarter last year and, now that the year 2013/14 is complete and the annual average known, you have to go back to 2006/07 and 2007/08 for a lower yearly average (that was shortly after Breakfast was first introduced - and record lows were recorded).

I think the annual percentage/population reach (4 quarters averaged) - as opposed to the raw number - is the second lowest since the current regimes (Radio 3 and RAJAR) were introduced in 1999. The population appears to have grown by about 11% whereas Radio 3's reach has grown by about 3%. Here the debate continues as to whether this is Radio 3's older audience dying off (must reach out to broader audience) or whether the older audience is giving up listening because the station no longer is of the standard they require (stop concentrating on broader audience and start educating the public seriously again).

Breakfast figure looks a big improvement (but again there were two very low figures this year) though it's one of the cases where one eagerly awaits next quarter to see if the improvement is maintained: an increase of 131,000 Q-on-Q looks a bit suspicious, given that overall reach only increased by 95,000. It either means that regular listeners are becoming reconciled to the new format, in significant numbers, or that the frequent volatility of the Breakfast figures has been the result of very small samples.

All calculations E&OE - I'll check them again when I have more time.

[johnb]

An update of the chart I've been maintaining:




Please let me know if you spot any errors.

[french frank]

Thanks very much, johnb. Makes my point about the increase in population and R3 lagging behind. But arising from that: one may presume that the increase in population is substantially due to a younger population who aren't 'natural listeners' to Radio 3. But rather than trying to lure in the (middle-aged) fans of Stuart Copeland and Richard Bacon, why not do more to keep the 'natural' listeners and wait for the younger listeners to come of their own accord (as they have in the past)?

Providing recitals and concerts is all very well, but isn't decontextualised music precisely what there is no shortage of elsewhere - concerts, CDs, other internet stations, downloads ?

[Zucchini]

Thanks very much, johnb. Makes my point about the increase in population and R3 lagging behind.

It doesn't, but you just have to find fault don't you? Every Rajar sheet warns you in red letters against comparing Rajar2 figures with Rajar3 which commenced in April 2007. So that's the starting point for a valid comparison. You will easily see that Radio 3 has comfortably outperformed population growth.

(johnb's chart is fine as a document of record but the scaling exaggerates small changes & interpretation needs care)

And another thing!
"Radio 3 controller Roger Wright said the station's audience had remained "stable" since Rajar figures first began ..."
Well, I have figures going back to 1995...

Actually the statement would have been perfectly reasonable if he's said "since Rajar3 figures first began"..

[french frank]

It doesn't, but you just have to find fault don't you?

Yes, where necessary.

Every Rajar sheet warns you in red letters against comparing Rajar2 figures with Rajar3 which commenced in April 2007.

I don't think so: it doesn't warn you against comparing them. It warns you to do so 'with caution'. This is because there were certain changes made to the data collection when Contract 3 began, none, that I can see, affecting Radio 3 (or any national figures). These were the changes recorded: "Following a tender process, a new contract was awarded, starting in Q2 2007. Ipsos retained the fieldwork while sample design and weighting is handled by RSMB.

"Changes to the main contract include:
"A new diary featuring platform columns as well as location, allowing reporting on each platform separately. [i.e. giving more detailed information]
"The move from postcode sectors to districts as building blocks to define TSAs, which led to a reduction in the number of segments, therefore bringing less volatility to the reported data." [i.e. affecting individual TSAs, not overall national figures.]

( So that's the starting point for a valid comparison. You will easily see that Radio 3 has comfortably outperformed population growth.

No, you base that (very conveniently!) on the very low figures which followed Radio 3's schedule changes in Feb 2007. No one said then, ah yes, that's only because local radio TSAs were changed in some cases.

[johnb]

(johnb's chart is fine as a document of record but the scaling exaggerates small changes & interpretation needs care)

The scaling was chosen so that for both Reach and Population the difference between the bottom and top of the chart weren't too dissimilar in percentage terms (so as not to give a misleading impression) while, at the same time, still having a common grid. (Reach +47%, Population +39%.)

Every Rajar sheet warns you in red letters against comparing Rajar2 figures with Rajar3 which commenced in April 2007.

The actual wording is "New survey from June 07. Compare with caution." Not quite the same thing.

The RAJAR website states that for the 3rd Contract (2007 onwards):

Changes to the main contract include:

A new diary featuring platform columns as well as location, allowing reporting on each platform separately.

The move from postcode sectors to districts as building blocks to define TSAs, which led to a reduction in the number of segments, therefore bringing less volatility to the reported data.

Perhaps someone can comment whether there were other significant changes which would invalidate comparisons.

I suspect that the relationship between "population" and reach is far from straightforward and is influenced by changing UK culture, changes to music teaching in schools, immigration from very different cultures, etc.

[Edit] Apologies. I started this post then left it for a while before getting back to it and clicking the save button. In the meantime FF had covered much of my points.

[french frank]

Perhaps someone can comment whether there were other significant changes which would invalidate comparisons.

I'd like to know that too. It would seem strange to specify points that were of no significance but omit the points which are significant.

[Andrew Slater]

There's a chart of R3 reach vs population here

[french frank]

:-/ I can't quite see what that represents, Andrew ...

As our second Bill Frindall always stresses, the raw reach figure is less significant than the %age of the population precisely because there are adjustments to the actual population figures each year: and R3's %age reach, usually hidden behind the all-purpose "4%" figure which is either rounded up or down, is that calculated on a yearly basis (to iron out quarterly reach fluctuations, and corresponding with the ONS annual population recalculation) Radio 3's reach in 2013/14 was 3.809%. And that was the lowest bar 2007/8. So even if you accept Zucchini's suggestion that the 2007/8 figure was lower by some mysterious change to the RAJAR system (rather than the schedule changes which were so heavily criticised - remember the 'Breakfast' board on the old messageboards?), the year just finished was lower than every other year SINCE that change.

[johnb]

I think that Andrew's chart shows the reach divided by the population and the three lines represent the quarterly, annual and 5 year ratios.

This might be a bit clearer (using percentages and with a different scale):

[french frank]

Thanks, johnb. I think it shows that there are various valid ways of demonstrating what's happened and they don't contradict each other.

[Andrew Slater]

I think it shows that there are various valid ways of demonstrating what's happened and they don't contradict each other.

No, they are exactly the same, except my plot doesn't use a false origin nor multiply everything by 100.

Thanks, johnb for explaining in my absence.

I was attempting to illustrate your argument by showing the relationship between reach and population: if reach tracked population precisely, the line should stay horizontal (with some deviations, as the population figure is only updated annually, whilst in an ideal world the reach would track the actual increase in population quarterly). For a static reach and an increasing population, the line would move downwards over time, and for a reach which increased faster than the population, the line would move upwards over time. In this case, the line is generally moving downwards. In fact it confirms your statements in post 236.

(I've managed to display the image now: Flickr buried their link and it took a bit of finding!)

[french frank]

Another of the difficulties one has in dealing with people at the BBC whose eyes glaze over when you mention numbers is that it seems they can't grasp that there is a profound difference between, say, 1.2% and 1.1% when talking about listening share. So what's a drop of just 0.1%? Isn't that 'stable'? When it's a share of a total of 1 billion listening hours per week, 0.1% is a million hours per week - a lot for a station that only racks up about 12m hours per week in total.