Community stations offer sustained growth for advertisers

Judy Milne

Around 90% of South Africans over the age of 15 tune in to the radio at least once a week and 68.9% of adults listen to the radio daily between Monday and Friday

It shows that community radio stations reached 23.5% of adults a week, with 8.728 million listeners in total. The average Monday to Friday listenership was 11.7% of adults, totalling 4.371 million listeners

The survey was released earlier this month by SA Audience Research Foundation (SAARF), which directs and publishes it. The latest figures are for the period May to August 2013 while the previous RAMS figures represented listenership figures for November 2012 to June 2013.

TMC stations grow

"These results validate the special place that community stations hold when it comes to communicating with South African citizens," says The Media Connection's (TMC) MD, Judy Milne.

The radio airtime sales company, currently servicing mainly community radio throughout South Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa, includes some of the fastest growing community radio stations in South Africa.

One of the top two community radio stations (determined by the number of listeners) in Gauteng is Jozi FM. "The latest RAMS figures show that it went from 399,000 to 533,000 listeners a week. What a star performance."

Tubatse Community Radio in Limpopo has shown growth, from 16,000 listeners in the last results, to 72,000 a week in the November RAMS results. Ekurhuleni's Kasie FM's listenership grew from 130,000 to 164,000; Sekhukhune nearly doubled its listenership, soaring to 178,000 from 98,000; Musina FM showed an increase of 26,000 listeners - 37,000 people tune in each week; Radio Zibonele in Khayelitsha went from 166,000 to 280,000.

Daily newspapers on the decline

"These results are heartening, especially when one considers that weekend newspaper circulation has dropped nearly 7.5% in the past year, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations of South Africa's third quarter report. The circulation of daily newspapers also declined, dropping 5.8%, from 1,566,778 copies to 1,475,429. Weekly newspapers lost 53,328 copies, which equates to 7.5% of their overall circulation.

"Community radio offers advertisers an exciting advertising solution and, because community radio targets specific areas and talks to specific people, advertising can be tailored to that demographic," concludes Milne.

For more information, go to www.themediaconnection.co.za.