In 2004, I wrote my first article predicting that the UK’s implementation of DAB digital radio was headed for failure. It was not guesswork. I had analysed radio industry data since 1980. I had worked  at The Radio Authority when it implemented DAB. I had worked  in Ofcom’s radio division. I had seen DAB from inside and outside the regulator and the commercial radio industry. Only five years after its launch, the available evidence demonstrated that DAB was headed for disaster in the UK.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/dab-radio-switchover-dead-as-the-dodo/

Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon.

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“Digital listening at an all-time high,” shouted the headline of one online news story. Yes, it was the quarterly RAJAR radio ratings, offering opportunities for some journalists to pitch their stories just about any which way they wanted. The opening sentence of this particular report said:

“The digital revolution shows no signs of slowing down, and not even the radio airwaves are set to maintain their analogue tradition, as a new [RAJAR] study suggests.”

Hardly.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/growing-dab-radio-usage-in-the-uk-confused-you-should-be/

Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon.

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The latest RAJAR ratings data for Q2 2011 demonstrate the continuing strength of the radio medium in recession Britain. Maybe if your TV or mobile subscriptions are having to be pruned, you turn to radio instead. In times of austerity, one of radio’s greatest attributes is that it appears to consumers to be available ‘free’ at the point-of-use...

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/uk-listening-growth-demonstrates-radios-strengths-in-a-multi-tasking-world/

Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon.

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Data published last week for 2011’s first quarter demonstrate that revenues of the UK commercial radio sector are still struggling to rebound from the previous two years’ ‘credit crunch.’ A large part of the problem is the coalition government’s swingeing cuts to its marketing budget since May 2010, which have afflicted commercial radio advertising much more significantly than other media [see my blog]. Additionally, and very worryingly, in Q1 2011, revenues from local advertisers fell to their lowest level for a decade, even at a time when local radio might be thought to be making client gains from the decimation of the local newspaper industry.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/uk-commercial-radio-sector-revenues-q1-2011-local-advertising-hits-10-year-low/

Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon.

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Andy Parfitt’s departure from the station controller job at BBC Radio 1 after thirteen years marks a significant event for the UK radio sector. Parfitt’s accomplishments during his tenure were many, but did not extend to significantly turning around the station’s audience ratings.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/andy-parfitt-leaves-bbc-radio-1-on-a-high-separating-the-man-from-the-myth/

Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon.

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Each of us has dozens of 'consultations' every day. You know the sort of thing. 'I’m going to the corner shop – anything you want?' 'A Kit-Kat?' 'OK.' However, if I came back with a cat rather than a chocolate bar, you would understandably be unhappy. That had not really been a consultation at all. Ofcom’s consultations on radio are increasingly like that. Ofcom pretends it is going to listen. It doesn’t listen. And then it does whatever it wanted to do in the first place. Mmmm. Surely that is not really a consultation at all.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/when-is-a-consultation-not-a-consultation-when-ofcom-consults-about-radio/

Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon.

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Speaking today at the Intellect conference in London, broadcasting Minister Ed Vaizey tried to assure us that digital radio switchover was still “on course” to happen in the year twenty something or other.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/dab-in-cars-the-straw-that-will-break-digital-radio-switchovers-back/

Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon.

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I only knew Roger Tate through listening to his programmes on the radio. He was a DJ on Radio Invicta, London’s first soul music radio station, launched in 1970. Invicta was a pirate radio station. Back then, there were no legal radio stations in the UK other than the BBC. The notion of a campaign for a soul music radio station for London had been a little premature, given that no kind of commercial radio had yet existed in Britain. But that is exactly what Radio Invicta did.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/radio-invicta-the-genesis-of-black-music-radio-in-london-still-unfulfilled/

Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon.

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As soon as the coalition government came to power in May 2010, it implemented Conservative Party policy to make substantial cutbacks to the amount of public money spent on government marketing campaigns. Commercial radio was hit the hardest because, more than any other medium, it had become increasingly dependent upon government expenditure on advertising airtime.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/government-expenditure-cutbacks-clobber-uk-commercial-radio/

Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon.

LinkedIn SlideShare Flickr Scribd Academia

It is good to know that radio is still an extremely popular medium in the UK, something borne out by the latest radio audience metrics published by industry body RAJAR for Q1 2011. However, in its determination to make every quarter’s results newsworthy, RAJAR has a track record of bending the truth to achieve press headlines [see my blog May 2010]. This latest quarter was no exception.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://grantgoddard.co.uk/when-uk-radio-listening-figures-are-this-good-why-does-rajar-need-to-fib/

Grant Goddard is a radio broadcasting expert with a lengthy track record of creating successful, innovative radio stations and programmes. His extensive writings about the radio industry are detailed on his website and can be downloaded from Amazon.

LinkedIn SlideShare Flickr Scribd Academia