2. 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
4. 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.
5. 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.
