[cma-l] Community Radio Order
Alan Coote
alan.coote at 5digital.co.uk
Fri Jan 23 13:18:47 GMT 2015
James,
I'll fill in the blanks in my previous sentence. "You may well be right
about [there not being ]the 10 million [people listing to community radio]".
But your blog post on the Media UK website was great up to the point you
mentioned RAJAR.
Unless you have access to the data it's not statistically possible to
calculate what the CR audience is and, even if you did, the sample size
would be too small so the confidence level of the results would mean a
station could have plus or minus double digit % reach.
I think there's an issue in the Ofcom report too if they have used station's
MCAs (not stated) to arrive at the a figure of 10 million potential
listeners. Even though not everyone will listen it does not take into
account Out of Area Listening.
We found when surveying The Bay in Bournemouth that a good proportion of
people listened in their car significantly beyond the MCA. During AM and PM
drive this was as much as 20%.
I don't know if this is normal and the same for commercial or BBC radio?
We put this phenomena down a combination to the quirkiness of the limited
transmitter power, the sensitivity of modern RDS radios and the poor antenna
on most kitchen top radios.
The hypothesis is that 25 watts doesn't penetrate buildings (especially ones
using modern construction materials) at the edges of the MCA. However modern
RDS car radios are excellent and provide listenable results way outside of
the MCA.
For example my RDS car radio identifies 3 community stations and all of them
are fine to listen to as I travel around. I'm not in any of their MCAs.
So the answer to your Blog "How many people listen to Community Radio?"
Can't be answered using RAJAR and Ofcom's MCA analysis doesn't tell the
whole story. The only guarantee is that it's somewhere between zero and what
physics says is possible.
Your guess is as good as mine!
Kind Regards
Alan
Email - <mailto:alan.coote at 5digital.co.uk> alan.coote at 5digital.co.uk
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From: cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk
[mailto:cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk] On Behalf Of James Cridland
Sent: 22 January 2015 11:32
To: The Community Media Association Discussion List
Subject: Re: [cma-l] Community Radio Order
>You may well be right about the 10 million, but it was published by Ofcom.
No, it wasn't. Your claim was that 10m people listen to community radio.
Ofcom published that 10.5m live in an area which has access to a community
radio service.
Let's be very clear: 10m people are *not* listening to community radio, and
it is wholly unrealistic to claim otherwise.
On Thu Jan 22 2015 at 11:04:33 AM Alan Coote <alan.coote at 5digital.co.uk>
wrote:
Hi James,
You may well be right about the 10 million, but it was published by Ofcom.
I pointed out the problems of using RAJAR's 'Other' category to determine an
un-surveyed audience, be they community radio or small commercial. It
doesn't make any sense.
Possibly the only solution would be to take a panel of independently
surveyed community stations and use that across the total community radio
universe to arrive at a reach. This figure couldn't be used of course by
individual stations, but may be an indicator of the sector as a whole.
To answer my own question about the confidence level of RAJAR they helpfully
have this on their website.
<http://www.rajar.co.uk/content.php?page=about_process_using#1.3>
http://www.rajar.co.uk/content.php?page=about_process_using#1.3
Kind Regards
Alan
From: cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk
[mailto:cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk] On Behalf Of James Cridland
Sent: 22 January 2015 10:02
To: The Community Media Association Discussion List
Subject: Re: [cma-l] Community Radio Order
Alan,
RAJAR does have its flaws, but you are not saying it's entirely useless, I
assume, and therefore it also has some credibility.
I'd be more keen to not slag off RAJAR, and instead, make statements about
community radio's audience that are rooted in some kind of fact. The 10m
figure is entirely false.
j
On Thu Jan 22 2015 at 9:43:31 AM Richard Berry
<richard.berry at sunderland.ac.uk> wrote:
I *think* I know what you're getting at Nick, and I agree with you. Audience
size is just one measure of success for our sector. We could also talk about
the number of people trained, diversity of content, or the voices that would
have otherwise been excluded. If we are to use RAJAR terminology, the
'reach' is important to some of us. A community station aimed at the whole
community should aim to reach everyone at some point in the year, or at
least the 5 year licence. To an extent we are like the local library, not
everyone comes, but they know where it is and that somewhere buried in the
shelves there will be something for them there. But better than that, if
there isn't they can put it there with our support. When it comes to clients
I think there is a different conversation to be had. For example, is there
benefit in being associated with a community station? And does that station
reach people who are not being reached by other local media? In most cases
the answers and 'yes' and 'yes'. Which brings us back to Pippa's point. I
think there are multiple types of community stations, and multiple
approaches to running them. Some of us come from radio backgrounds, some
places like community arts and volunteering, and others directly into
community radio as helpers and presenters. Some stations want to sound like
good local radio stations (the way they used to be), for some it's a place
of training, and others run diverse services where pop music is all but
banned. That is our core strength, we are different, we'll all probably not
agree on what's right, but we should support each other and build one
sector.
Whatever today's order says there's bound to be disappointment, but then
what one station dislikes about it, another may well celebrate as being the
one thing they were hoping for. As I say, we're all different..
And with that, back to work
Richard Berry
Senior Lecturer in Radio / Spark FM Station Manager
Room 101B, David Puttnam Media Centre,
University of Sunderland, SR6 0DD
(+44) 0191 515 2239
<https://www.facebook.com/sunderlanduniversityFADM>
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From: cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk
[mailto:cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk] On Behalf Of Canalside's The
Thread
Sent: 21 January 2015 19:36
To: 'The Community Media Association Discussion List'
Subject: Re: [cma-l] Community Radio Order
You see guys, sorry to appear to be looking for an argument, but all of this
ought to be irrelevant under the original launch of Community Radio. It is
the fact that we have less or more listeners or the same that causes the
problems. If we are going around saying we have more listeners than whoever
? then the restrictions kinda come into play. I know they shouldn't and I
know that if we have more listeners (or don't) it shouldn't matter. It ought
to have no bearing on it. Sadly it has had a bearing and my point weeks ago,
was that the message being sent out there now is all gobbledy gook.
Are we competing, are we not competing, if we are not ought we be, if we are
should we not be ?? it's a shambles .I believe Community Radio should be
simplistic, it should be Que sera sera and restrictions should be no where
in sight. Whatever will be will be and we all deal with it.
I don't care if we have more or less listeners than Silk ..why ? because if
Community Radio was running how it is meant to be, we would have enough
funding from the Community Fund Pot, to pay for the essentials and core
costs. In otherwords, if we were 100% voluntary, with folk wandering in
willy nilly, we could still function in some way shape or form. This is with
or without a Station manager and/or someone on sales etc I
think this is how many saw Community Radio. Right or wrong, poor image or
good image, it shouldn't matter as we ought to be able to function even if
we are rag tag and bobtail.
Does everyone know where I am coming from here or am I waffling again ? I
feel that we have lost our way, but it isn't exactly our fault. What the
restrictions have done, along with the lack of financial support in the Pot
has distorted the whole Venture, hence why I was saying there is confusion.
It isn't confusion in the true sense of the word but I think a few shots in
own feet have taken place.
Keep it simple has been my message. I don't expect everyone to agree ... but
??? Rajar shouldn't even be on the Radar, if that makes
sense. The moment we start asking to be placed on Rajar, I think we are
going away from our values. We're not here to compete, even though in a
roundabout way we are. We have to compete because the financial support has
been woeful ... so is it a wonder why I reach for the defensive stick ??
If I'm wrong here, please say so, that's fine by me no probs.
Nick
_____
From: cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk
[mailto:cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk] On Behalf Of Two Lochs Radio
Sent: 21 January 2015 18:39
To: The Community Media Association Discussion List
Subject: Re: [cma-l] Community Radio Order
Well done Paul!
>From RAJAR's latest available quarter that reach would put your listener
numbers ahead of at least 20 of the commercial stations that are RAJAR
subscribers, including Smooth Radio Essex, and ahead of many more that don't
pay RAJAR!
Alex
RAJAR quarter ending Sep 2014
Station
Reach
Eagle Extra
3,000
Fire Radio South Coast
4,000
Connect DAB
7,000
Radio Ceredigion
16,000
107.8 Arrow FM for Hastings
17,000
107 JACK fm (Reading 107FM)
18,000
The Breeze (Cheltenham)
18,000
107.6 Banbury Sound
18,000
Free Radio 80s (Shropshire)
19,000
Rugby FM
20,000
Lakeland Radio
20,000
107.5 Sovereign Radio
21,000
96.2 Touch FM - Coventry
22,000
Time FM 106.6
23,000
North Norfolk Radio
23,000
Radio Exe
24,000
Pulse 2
26,000
3FM
26,000
Smooth Radio Essex
28,000
Oak FM
28,000
Smooth Radio Devon
29,000
Cheshire's Silk 106.9
29,000
----- Original Message -----
From: Paul Golder <mailto:paul at pvg.co.uk>
To: The Community Media Association Discussion List
<mailto:cma-l at mailman.commedia.org.uk>
Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2015 6:01 PM
Subject: Re: [cma-l] Community Radio Order
I've contracted with a private market research firm a few times since we
took to the airwaves full time in 2007.
We're currently getting a 20% weekly reach which implies about 30,000
listeners a week. Our website visitor figures (over 200,000 per month, with
12,000 a month viewing the schedule and local events pages) seem to make
sense in this context.
I wasn't aware that RAJAR was skewed towards its members' areas, which would
make any extrapolation of the "other radio listening" figure quite
meaningless.
It's natural for CR to be defensive with the suggestion that CR has half a
million listeners - but I'm just not buying it. That's only an average of
2,000 per station - I could probably NAME at least 3,000 people who engage
with us regularly!
Cheers
Paul
Phoenix FM
www.phoenixfm.com
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