Radio Wars: A shift in the force


In November last year I conducted a survey on your radio listening trends. Then I had a baby, then Christmas, NYE and a birthday. Then I just got lazy. But finally.... I'm getting around to sharing the results of that survey from November last year and if you're dorky like me you might find this a little bit interesting. You might want to look at the results from my previous survey that I published in March 2014 here as a way to track the changes in radio listener trends.

By volume, Hi FM are now no longer the popular choice amongst you, readers of this blog. I think it'd be a bit much to say this is truly reflective of all listeners in Oman, but certainly interesting as I have repeatedly asked the question to you over the years about which station you listen to the most and it's consistently been Hi FM, or Hi Oman as they are now calling themselves because they are now broadcasting across all of Oman (well across most of the population centres) at frequencies between 95.0 and 95.9 depending on the region.

Now, I asked you a number of questions, and the answers to each question are posted below:

Now would you look at that! Merge have taken the lead, Hi FM have lost the most, Oman FM 90.4 has seen a pretty strong increase, and new comers, BBC World Service (English at least) have shown a pretty good start in the market too. It's not all bad for HI FM & Oman 90.4 though, because when I only plot the responses from those people who responded who's salaries are RO 3000 or more per month, the listener trends look like this:

My my, The people among us that earn more money per month seem to prefer Oman FM 90.4 over any other station, with Hi FM not far behind, and Merge a long way back. And because I'm so extra nerdy, I can even plot the nationality of those RO 3000+ respondents as well - they look like this:


So, its the Europeans, North Americans and Australasians that make all the dosh then. And you guys like 90.4 the most. I have to say that with the start of Adam Cole in the mornings on 90.4 and Marcus working behind the scenes at the station, its certainly seen an increase in popularity, Good for them!

In a bit of a total domination, even those who's 1st choice is not to listen to Merge, it's also the most popular 2nd choice station as well. I suspect the boys and girls at Merge are quite happy about that!
 This hasn't changed really from the last time I asked you that question - a good indicator.
 Obviously.
 Pretty much the same as before. Interesting to note that 90.4 are now broadcasting 24/7.
 No change here either!
Big change here as new comer, BBC World Service have totally dominated their target market here... last time 90.4 had the best news (by choice) and they're still the best after the Beeb. Just. Still amazed so many people voted for Merge, who don't do news bulletins.

No change here, but yet it's funny because facebook insights still tells me more women read MM than men... it just seems the women don't want to participate as much in my boring radio surveys! :D

 
 I'm still in the Orange bit, and so are most of you... :)

 As we saw earlier... lots of high earners there!

 Pretty much who I'm targeting with my blog right there.
Well this has changed a little bit actually. Below are the results from the last survey in March 2014.

You can see that Pop is still the most popular, but it's lost a lot of its lead to Rock. Yet there is still hardly any rock music played on the radio here.....

And that's it! Thanks for filling in my survey - I'll want to do it again quite soon, Hi FM have brought on a lot of new radio presenters and we recently saw the departure of Kathy Cole from Hi FM, leaving Darren as the sole remaining presenter from Hi's launch a few years ago. Adam & Marcus are doing great work over at 90.4 and Chris & Neal & the team are kicking ass and taking names at Merge. It'll be interesting to see if they keep their lead when I do the next survey!

It'd just be really great if Oman FM could sort out their terrible website.

More soon!

le fin.
Radio Wars: A shift in the force Radio Wars: A shift in the force Reviewed by Sythe on Tuesday, March 24, 2015 Rating: 5

1 comment:

  1. The higher income demographic is interesting and I'm sure it is reflected in the choice of music for that cross-section.
    A higher earner is generally more discerning about what they choose and want to listen to music that has proved it lasts or music that will go on to do so.
    90.4 is also better at segmenting their music.
    There have been several occasions where 95.9 and 104.8 have played the exact same song at the same time. Purely because they are playing to the lowest common denominator and a limited range of songs. generally by one-off 'artists' or collaborations of music producers under the guise of musicians.
    In the UK I can happily listen to Radio 1 most of the day knowing that I will get a range of music and on-air banter. Spend some time in Dubai and you will also have a choice of station and you are likely to stay tuned to that station most of the time you are there. Catboy and Geordie-Bird are a great example of keeping listeners entertained with organic material instead of snippets from internet sites spoon-fed to radio stations.
    have you noticed how all the voices that say 'I love listening in the morning' or 'They're so cool' or whatever they use to promote themselves are in American accents? Do this interviews here and you will get very different soundbites.
    When one station decides to actually do something different and have 80s, 90s, rock, new music, alternative etc shows and actually differentiates a morning show and a drive-time show from the lunch show then you will see loyalty coming in and it will be from that demographic that they all want to appeal to for their advertisers.

    ReplyDelete

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