RAJAR and Audience Figures

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RAJAR and Audience Figures• RAJAR means Radio Joint Audience Research Limited• RAJAR was established in 1992 as a measurement system

for the United Kingdom’s radio industry. RAJAR is jointly owned by both the ‘BBC’ and ‘RadioCentre’.

• The company is non profitable and collects information for over 300 BBC and Ofcom Licensed commercial radio stations, from small local stations to nationwide stations.

• RAJAR finds information and published a quarterly report on station listening by time, duration, platform and location.

• According to RAJAR, their mission is to “be responsible for setting the research specification, the awarding of the research contracts to third party suppliers and the overall quality control , management and delivery of the service. The day to day operations are overseen by the Chief Executive and Research Director.” Jerry Hill – Chief

Executive of RAJAR

RAJAR Data Release 2015

These latest statistics from RAJAR provide us an idea of how people listen to the radio and the age groups in which they appeal to.

With the work of RAJAR, radio broadcasters can develop their station to appeal to a wider audience to increase listeners.

From ‘http://www.rajar.co.uk/’ I learnt more about radio statistics, before RAJAR I had assumed the radio broadcasters found out this information independently instead of one company sharing knowledge to the broadcasters as well as the public.

Local Radio Stations and RAJAR• As well as the most listened to Radio stations like BBC Radio 1, stations such as SAM FM or

BBC Radio Solent also have recorded information on the RAJAR website which helps to give both the audience and the company knowledge on listeners.

• When looking at these figures, I was initially surprised at the low amount of people listening to the station in the area and only 16% of people reached. I compared the information to that of BBC Radio Guernsey and was initially surprised at the 41% reach for the station despite the far lower population in the area, however this information is only nominal and therefore cannot be compared to each other so easily because Radio Solent had over 5 times the amount of listeners and yet a lower percentage, this is because of the lack of radio stations available for listeners in Guernsey compared to the high amount of choice in the area Radio Solent is broadcasted, this is why reach percent is far more important in showing popularity and not just reach in numbers.