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Radio still losing listeners

20 Aug 2006

While seven-day radio listening has remained stable over the previous SAARF's Radio Audience Measurement Survey (RAMS) wave of 2006, when compared to the same period in 2005, listening levels for the third wave of RAMS 2006 are significantly down for Monday - Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

This indicates that the loss was due to a decline in 'core' rather than 'occasional' listeners.

This third release of SAARF RAMS consists of data gathered from two fieldwork periods covering the period from mid-March to June 2006. The sample size was 18 156.

Monday - Friday listening, as reported in SAARF RAMS July 2005, was 77.7%, a figure which has dropped to 76% in the current wave.

Saturday and Sunday listening have suffered similar fates. Saturday levels are at 72.3%, down from 73.9% in SAARF RAMSJuly 2005. Sunday's penetration of 69.9% is significantly down from 71.5% in the year previous.

Past seven-day listenership remains stable, at 90.1%, or 27.612 million unique listeners over the seven days.

On a station level, there are no significant changes over the previous wave for any of the PBS and commercial stations. A number of stations, however, including CKI FM Stereo, Umhlobo Wenene FM, Thobela FM, Motsweding FM and Lesedi FM, are showing signs of slow decline in their past seven day listenership, with listenership figures trending down over each of the three surveys since July 2005. These losses are, as yet, not statistically significant, according to SAARF.

Total Community is the only winner in this third SAARF RAMS wave showing significant increases year-on-year, although the sector's listenership figure has remained stable on the second wave of 2006. Past seven day listenership has risen from 17.7% in July 2005, to 20.3% in the current survey, while Monday - Friday listenership has grown from 9.7% in July 2005, to 11.1%.

Following are other noteworthy topline results from the third SAARF RAMS wave for 2006:

There has been a welcome decline in the SU-LSM 1 group, which is down significantly on July 2005, from 8.2% to 6.3%.
Time spent listening per day is four hours, 38 minutes (up by one minute on the previous survey).
Time spent listening per week is 32 hours, 28 minutes (up by nine minutes on the previous survey).
The national repertoire of stations remains at 2.0

The fourth wave of SAARF RAMS 2006 will be released on 4 October 2006.