Community radio a shining star - RAMS

Thanks to growth in KwaZulu-Natal, North West, Limpopo and the Eastern Cape, community radio has increased its weekly reach over RAMS August 2008, up from 20.2% to 22.8%. Within the sector, Eden FM is up year on year, from a 2.5% to 4.1% weekly reach.

Improved figures

Three other stations were also able to improve their figures over the previous year.

• Gagasi 99.5 FM grew its weekly audience from 4.9% in RAMS August 2008 to 5.8% currently, with 1.81 million listeners. Similarly, its average Monday-to-Friday audience is up, pushing the station's reach from 2.7% to 3.4%. Compared to the RAMS June 2009 release however, Gagasi's figures remained stable (which is also true for all the stations featured in this summary report).

• PBS station Radio 2000 has improved audience figures over the year previous. On a weekly basis, the station boosted its reach from 0.9% in RAMS August 2008 to 1.5% currently. During the working week, Radio 2000's reach is currently at 0.5%, up from 0.3%.
  
• The final station on the up and up is Talk Radio 702. The Gauteng station's weekly audience rose from 1.5% in RAMS August 2008 to 2.0% currently, pushing it past the 600 000 audience level by 22 000 listeners.

The downside

Despite the gains of some stations, radio has continued the trend seen in the last two RAMS releases - dropping significantly over the year previous - although listening in general has remained stable on RAMS June 2009.

Across all time periods, radio is down on RAMS August 2008.

• Past 7 days: from 94.1% in the year previous to 90.8%.
  
• Average Monday-to-Friday: down from 77.3% to 74.0%, with significantly fewer LSM 3 listeners (from 10.6% to 9.2%) and significantly more LSM 8 listeners (from 6.9% to 7.8%).
  
• Saturday listening dropped from 73.6% to 67.1%
  
• Sunday listening fell from 71.8% to 66.4%

Time spent listening has, predictably, declined over RAMS August 2008, dropping by an average one hour and 12 minutes across the week (to 28 hours, 54 minutes currently), and with daily listening averaging four hours and eight minutes, down by 10 minutes on the year previous.

Mirrored overall declines

Four stations mirrored the overall declines of the medium. Although remaining stable on the previous RAMS release, Jacaranda 94.2 lost listeners across the year, dropping from an 8.3% weekly reach in RAMS August 2008 to 7.2% at present. On an average Monday-to-Friday, the station fell from 4.2% to 3.3%. (RMFM's reach also fell, from 0.8% to 0.5%.)

Heart 104.9 FM's weekday audience declined from 1.4% in the year previous to 1.0% currently.

Lesedi FM's weekly and average Monday-to-Friday audiences are lower than a year ago. The station's weekly reach fell from 11.9% to 10.7%, while its average Monday-to-Friday reach went from 7.5% to 6.6%.

Thobela FM's Monday-to-Friday audience declined, with its reach falling from 6.6% in the year previous, to 5.6% currently.

Finally, in the community sector, the weekly reach of Soshanguve Community Radio declined from 2.0% in the year previous to 1.2% currently, while Radio Tygerberg 104 FM's weekly reach fell from 10.7% to 8.3%.

This latest release represents fieldwork from mid-March to the beginning of July 2009. The second last release of SAARF RAMS for 2009 is scheduled for 27 October.

For more, go to www.saarf.co.za and the Radio Advertising Bureau's (RAB) RAMS 2009/3 PDF download.