Wordblog

There is good news for broadcasters from both sides of the Atlantic. While the patterns of listening in the UK, shown in the latest Rajar figures, and those for the US, in a report from Bridge Ratings, are different they are both good for broadcasters.

Previous pessimistic forecasts are proving wrong. In 2004 Bridge predicted a steep fall in terrestrial radio audiences but has now adjusted this to be almost level until 2020. Rajar reports that that the radio number increased by almost 600,000 listeners in the second quarter.

Fears that the iPod generation was lost to broadcasters are being proved wrong. Rajar reports that 2.7 million adults (18.3% of mp3 player owners) now say that they have used their mp3 player to listen to podcasts.

And Bridge found their panel had “greatly reduced their weekly use of their MP3 players returning to terrestrial radio listening patterns similar to those this group used in 2004″.

While the way radio is being delivered is changing fast the audience is still there. I find the most interesting suggestion is that there is “iPod fatigue” which makes me wonder if the importance of freedom of choice to create your own play list was over-rated.

If it was, it could also suggest good news for for mainstream TV and text media. Perhaps few of us really like a lot of choice.