Primal Scream News: Absolute Radio 90s To Air ‘Screamadelica’ Documentary – by Tim Vernon

01Nov

Absolute Radio 90s, the nation’s only station dedicated to songs from the 90s, is producing ‘Screamadelica and The Second Summer of Love’, a documentary about Primal Scream’s award-winning and now legendary 90s album. The documentary will coincide with the band’s ‘Screamadelica’ dates in November.

Screamadelica and The Second Summer of Love is being produced and narrated by broadcaster Pete Mitchell and will feature frank conversations with Primal Scream front man Bobby Gillespie, about the making of the era-defining record. Pete Mitchell has produced several documentaries for BBC Radio 2 and 6 Music in the last couple of years including a Motown 6-parter ‘Hitsville USA’ and ‘Toerag’ the story of the producer behind The White Stripes album ‘Elephant’

The documentary will look at the explosion of youth culture in dance music in the late ‘80s, and the influence this had on rock bands like The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and Primal Scream. It will feature contributions from The Inspiral Carpets’ Clint Boon, Hacienda DJ and ‘Manchester, England’ author Dave Haslam and singer Denise Johnson, who features on tracks from the Screamadelica album.

The hour long programme will air on national DAB station Absolute Radio 90s at 8pm on Friday 26th November, at the end of a week of Primal Scream activity on the station. The documentary will also be available as a podcast and to stream at www.absoluteradio.co.uk.

- Tim Vernon

Categories: Absolute Radio 90s Music 1

Posted by jonny on November 1, 2010

The Absolute Radio Brand Exactly Two Years On by Clive Dickens

01Nov

I often get asked; why do we decide to re-brand and when do you think you will eclipse the previous brands’ network performance?

Hopefully I have answered both questions consistently over time, you may recall that in relation to the estimated size of broadcast audience we forecasted it would take two years to become a net positive bigger business than before we launched. When the RAJAR data hit my inbox on Wednesday I was pretty confident that we had met our two year claim but I was pleasantly surprised to see that we are now a 14% bigger broadcast business than in Q3:08, which therefore the team had delivered a 4.5yr high in total hours.

One Golden Square is a hive of creative, dedicated & professional radio/digital/audio evangelists and this Quarter’s RAJAR was their win!

A very BIG win indeed… 

Here are just some of the highlights for this quarter. 

  • Listening to the Absolute Radio Network now at 4.5yr high & 2yr high for Absolute Radio.
  • The Absolute Radio business in audience terms is now 14% larger than the VR business at time of launch.
  • London listening to Absolute Radio is now 10%  & 30% for the Network larger than the VR business, a 9yr high.
  • 25-54 listening in London increased 21% for Absolute Radio & 33% for AR-Network, highest since RAJAR began.
  • Absolute Radio’s Reach increased 4% in Q3 while the Network’s increased 19%, now only 8% less than VR-Network
  • 25-54 Reach increased 12% for Absolute Radio and 25% for the AR-Network
  • London 15+ Reach increased 11% for Absolute Radio in Q3 and 20% for the Network, 4% larger than VR-Network
Rajar graphs

Q4:10 in the business is another big one with some new innovations, fresh launches & game changes to come

Isn’t it time you discovered Absolute Radio?

- Clive Dickens

Categories: Absolute Radio Brands Measurement People rajar 1

Posted by jonny on November 1, 2010

Absolute Radio Wins Media Week Bronze Award for Sales Pitch Niche – By Carly Lucas

29Oct

After a great set of Rajar results yesterday, off we sauntered with our heads held high to the Media Week Awards at the Grosvenor House Hotel.

We were nominated in the Sales Pitch Niche category for The Wadworth 6X Pub Quiz campaign that saw great success for us and the client back in the summer.

In attendance were the very glamorous Chloe, Rachel, Tamsin, Louise, Matt,  Jack, Luke & Chris for Absolute Radio and our guest for the evening Paul Sullivan, Wadworth’s Marketing Manager. After a bit of schmoosing, working the room and other typical media turn of phrases we tucked into the champers and grub and waited for the awards to commence.

A very nervous Mr Woodcock was on the edge of his seat as host for the evening Rufus Hound took centre stage and called everyone who worked in media a bunch of….. you know the rest.

Our very own Chris Goldson also took to the stage to present the award for Best International Campaign sponsored by Absolute Radio.

We were in great company in our category and got a big cheer when we were announced as Bronze winners (I think the RAB were sat next to us).

After that it was on to the dance floor when Jack and Matt were busting some very questionable moves, the single ladies were scouring the room for some hot media men (I can confirm we were all unsuccessful) and then we were joined by gate crashers Clive and Clare to continue on the celebrations with copious amounts of booze.

A big thanks to everyone in the building who worked on the Wadworth Campaign, our hard work paid off and you can come and kiss the lovely award on Monday morning, it’s currently in the bottom of a rucksack somewhere in East London.

Breaking News: Media spies have confirmed that Clive, Jack and Matt were kicked out of a club in the early hours of this morning. Clive is the only one to make it into the office today.

 - Carly Lucas

Categories: Absolute Radio Events Media People 2

Posted by jonny on October 29, 2010

Absolute Radio Network Posts Highest Listening Hours In Four And A Half Years

28Oct

 

  • Absolute Radio’s network hours are now at 18.2m with a reach of 2.4 million listeners – highest in nearly five years
  •  Christian O’Connell’s adult audience is up 16.1% to 1.1 million
  • Absolute 80s – 564,000 listeners and 3.7 million hours

The Absolute Radio network (Absolute Radio, Absolute 80s, Absolute Radio 90s, Absolute Classic Rock and Absolute Radio extra) has significantly grown the scale of its brand in today’s RAJAR results, posting its strongest total hours performance in nearly five years – and a nine year high in the important London market.

The station’s network listening is now at 18.2 million total hours, up 24% quarter on quarter and a huge 48.2% year on year. The network’s reach has increased 19% quarter on quarter and a massive 33% year on year with 2.4 million listeners to the Absolute Radio network.

Absolute Radio has also increased its reach 4.2% quarter on quarter and 4.2% year on year and increased total hours 4.1% quarter on quarter and 10.9% year on year.

The station’s flagship Christian O’Connell Breakfast Show has posted an impressive increase in reach of 16.1% quarter on quarter which is a significant 30.6% increase year on year – the highest in two and a half years.

In the key London market, the network’s listening has increased by 26.4% year on year and 19.1% quarter on quarter with an 11% increase quarter on quarter in reach and 3.9% year on year.

The network’s digital stations have posted substantial increases. Absolute 80s has performed exceptionally well, with a reach of 564,000 and 3.7m hours in just six months – up a massive 139% on the quarter. This is the first RAJAR for Absolute Radio 90s which has posted an impressive reach of 203,000 and 976,000 hours.

Digital innovation remains core to the brand’s business and Absolute Radio continues to pioneer the radio industry in digital listening. 55.2% of the station’s listening across the network is now done via a digital platform with the industry average of 24.8% for all radio.

“This performance demonstrates the significant growth of the Absolute Radio brand in just two years. We are now a much bigger business than before the Absolute Radio brand was launched; in fact we’re at a four and a half year high.” said Clive Dickens, Chief Operating Officer, Absolute Radio.

Source: RAJAR / Ipsos – MORI / RSMB, period ending September 2010, all stations and groups results are reported on their specified reporting period and TSA.

Categories: Absolute 80s Absolute Classic Rock Absolute Radio Absolute Radio 90s Measurement rajar Uncategorized 3

Posted by jonny on October 28, 2010

September Engagement Metrics

26Oct

As mobile platforms becomes increasingly important, so Absolute Radio’s listening via a mobile platform continues to grow. In September a record 332,000 hours were streamed via a mobile platform, up 17.7% from August.

Always on the forefront of new and emerging technologies, last week the station announced that it had developed a beta version of the Absolute Radio application for Windows Phone 7 just hours after the new platform was launched in the UK! The One Golden Square Labs team are working hard to move this from beta to a version that users will be able to download from the Windows 7 Marketplace soon.

The Frank Skinner Show podcast again tops the Absolute Radio podcast chart in September with a massive 783,398 podcasts downloaded in the month – this takes him to 5.1 million podcasts in total. Dave Gorman’s and Iain Lee’s podcasts follow with 377,346 and 326,224 downloads respectively.

Despite no new podcast content being created since July, the Baddiel and Skinner South African podcasts are still proving popular with 73,000 new downloads in September taking the total number over the whole campaign to over 3 million.

In September, The Absolute Radio Network (Absolute Radio, Absolute 80s, Absolute Classic Rock and Absolute Radio 90s ) served 9.8 million hours of compelling online content including live online streamed hours, live mobile streamed hours, downloaded on-demand audio and video and the network streamed 7.5 million hours of live audio in September.

Absolute Radio is working hard across the industry to release these figures consistently but remains the only commercial station to do so. The BBC releases its on-demand figures which presents an interesting comparison here.

These statistics are gathered using data from streams in a variety of formats with actual listening data collected from multiple computers or internet radio devices. Data is also collected from cookies removed from PCs. This measure of engagement allows the station to give greater insight into how listeners hear it’s output via the internet providing further accountability for customers and stakeholders.

Monthly figures for the network are available from our stats page. These figures can be referenced with those supplied at other stations, with whom we’re closely working to provide comparable reported figures.

Categories: Absolute 80s Absolute Classic Rock Absolute Radio Absolute Radio 90s Measurement 0

Posted by jonny on October 26, 2010