With headlines like Radio Not Dead and Return of radio: Ratings at a record high, mainstream media greeted the latest UK radio ratings with a mixture of shock and wonderment.
Like their US counterparts, British new-media pundits wrote-off radio some time ago, yet the latest ratings showed UK radio broadcasting posting records in both reach and hours-tuned.
Radio’s continued strength surprised no one in the radio business, but seemingly everyone outside the radio business. Tim Davie of the BBC declared:
It is quite brilliant to see radio reaching a record number of listeners in the digital age. These results speak to the unique quality of radio in the UK and reflect our work as an industry to keep innovating to attract new listeners.
Some reporters stuck with the new-media narrative of growth driven by a dramatic increase in Internet listening, but a look at the actual numbers proves that streaming remains a small proportion of UK radio listening, much like in the US.
UK broadcasters have the advantage of measuring all sources of radio listening simultaneously, so they can see how the various platforms contribute to total listening. This makes it easier to refute new-media spin.
In a January post we asserted that to assess the real state of broadcast listening we have to combine terrestrial listening with streaming, a more difficult task in the US.
We reasoned that total listening must be growing because Arbitron PPM trends are flat, measured broadcast streams are growing, and the majority of streams are not even measured.
If terrestrial broadcast listenership is at worst flat (as Arbitron says it is) and listenership to broadcast group streams is growing (as Ando Media says it is), total broadcast listenership has to be growing, even if we don’t have the actual combined numbers.
The January post was met with skepticism because it runs counter to the new-media promoted storyline that radio listenership is collapsing.
Now we have credible methodologically sound numbers from the UK that support our contention that streaming is expanding broadcast radio listening, not hurting it.
So can we finally get beyond this "radio is dying" meme? It is simply not true. Get over it!
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