The Radio Star is still going strong Friday, May 11, 2007
Despite ipods and other distractions, the stats issued by the UK radio industry body, Rajar, yesterday shows that radio is more than holding its own in terms of audiences.
The total number of listeners nationwide is 45m, an all-time record.
With over 250 stations operating in the UK, relatively few of whom make decent returns, the industry was described to me recently as almost akin to how football operates - a few giants that dominate the scene, with lots of struggling small local outfits kept aloat by generous benefactors.
These figures will add further gloom to the small local operators, with a continued yet marked switch in listener hours to national stations many of which are focussed on a particular genre eg Classic FM
One characteristic of the radio industry that has always amazed me is that the stations pay to play music. Now if an artist wants to promote their album on TV via an advert then they pay the TV company, but if the radio stations plays a song then the artist gets income for the same "advert".
Of course, the artists & record companies contend that radio stations can only earn advertising revenues because of their content which lures in listeners & hence they should receive a share.
I think it might be interesting if a station group elected not to play several artists until they got better terms, thereby chipping away at this balance of power. Perhaps one day.
posted by John Wilson @ 5:48 PM Permanent Link
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