RAJAR RESEARCH

WHAT IS RAJAR?

• RAJAR stands for Radio Joint Audience Research.• Official body in charge of measuring radio audiences in the UK.• Jointly owned by the BBC and the Radiocentre on behalf of the commercial

sector.• Prior to this, the BBC and Radio Centre’s predecessor (The CRCA) carried out

their own measurements independently of each other.

HOW DO THEY COLLECT THE DATA?• Rajar use radio diaries to record their information. • They do this by online questionnaires or on a hard copy • They take the figures and multiply it proportionally dependent on the size of

the population• They have to complete the questionnaire over the course of a week.

THIS GRAPHIC SHOWS THE NUMBER OF

LISTENERS PER WEEK

HOW LONG THEY LISTEN FOR

THEY ALSO SHOW THE DEMOGRAPHICS OF THE

LISTENERS (CLASS,AGE,GENDER,EDUCATION, EARNINGS)

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT FOR RADIO STATIONS?

• To show how much they can charge the sponsors, because the more listeners the have the more they can charge.

• And also if they know the demographic of there listeners, they can cater the program more to there demographic of listeners

RAJAR LISTENING FIGURES RESEARCH

I found the most recent listening figures (Dec ‘16) and produced a spreadsheet to show them.

ISLE OF WIGHT RADIO

• Population of 119,000 (residents aged over 10)• Out of this population, only 35% listen to Isle of Wight Radio regularly. • This surprised me because this is the only island-based FM radio station available

and yet 35% is quite a low figure.• In my personal opinion, I think because mainland stations like Capital FM are part of

large media corporations, they are able to advertise their radio stations more (e.g. on TV, etc.) and therefore people are more likely to recognise their brand.

• The population of the Isle of Wight is quite elderly so perhaps Isle of Wight Radio’s target audience of women aged 30 – 35 is too niche.

WAVE 105

• The ratings for Wave 105 stand at 1.8 million listeners over the area of Hampshire, which is a very small number of listening figurers for one region at 24%.

• The reason I believe the listening figures are so low is because they have to compete wit many highly funded commercial radio stations such as Capital or Sam FM.

BBC RADIO 1

• Radio 1 has a reach of 18%, this may not sound like a lot however from the perspective of reaching a national audience, this is a large amount of listeners.

• The demographic for Radio 1 is 15-25, this age group are more likely to not listen to the radio consistently as they have a varied media diet(eg. Online, vidogames, stream music platforms)

• However Radio 1 have a much stronger online presence than radio stations.; (eg. Youtube, twitter, Instagram, Facebook)

SAM FM

• SAM FM only have a listening reach percentage of 10%• I believe this is because they play a lot of alternative/older music, doing this

the attract a more niche audience • The demographic for SAM FM is men aged 30-50

SUMMARY OF MY RESEARCH

• RAJAR is the system used to find out listening figures for radio stations• This is important because of marketing and advertising and allows the

sations to understand their demographic and gear more towards that demographic

• An interesting thing I found was that so many more people listen to BBC based stations rather than commercial radio stations