Had a listen to this station today and was pleasently surprised.

Martin Greenwood seems to have settled in to being a Breakfast Presenter rather well, Andy Cook sounded as good as ever and even Simon Brierly managed to make a promo with some impressions and humour in!

It will be very interesting to see what RAJAR brings this station!.

Well despite my good wishes it seems their first RAJAR is somewhat of a disaster with just 5% reach (11,000 listeners)

Reading their original application document they had predicted 20% - I think there could well be Big Changes as a result of this!

I wonder what rest of the team behind fm106 The Burn, Must be thinking? still we must not be to harsh on the Bee, let's see what happens on the next Rajar......

Hello Mr Gibson !!! Hows life sir....not spoken to you since we worked on CLR - hope all is well young man! Yeah RAJARs for The Bee were poor, but hey everyone deserves a 2nd chance dont they?

Sad how 2 good stations start to fail ..2br and the bee...Answer kick out any contact with TLRC ... go back to being a small local station....Radio groups are the end of great radio in the uk

Not in every case but there is a general trend Id agree deeboo.....How much influence do TLRC have on the station and is there any link between this and the plummeting figures at neighbouring 2BR???

the question maybe is that where you get a two or three company ownership status - i.e The Bee being TRB and TLRC, Abbey FM being TRB, CN and TLRC - who wants to cough up the required funds to really market the stations - when every investor simply wants a return as quick as possible.

Could this be part of the bee's impact / reach problem, or is it the inevitability of the dilution of local radio?

who can say - no-one I guess, but we can speculate on .......

---

Derek Marks
TV/Radio Producer/Presenter
Lancashire
www.derky.co.uk

I feel sorry for roy and his team..no one wants to see a once good station starting to slide....

I think the potential is there and you cant really say the station hasnt been getting out and about in their area...I suspect its the product thats wrong and that could be due to the mix of owners not giving the station management proper guidence - .....still now we have a RAJAR we have a price...I wonder who would be interested...UTV is my bet! - shame cos Ive liked alot of what I heard but I reckon big changes are imminent

For me, this situation again raises the point of what format these smaller local stations should take. I am slowly coming to the conclusion that perhaps they need a radically different product, i.e. a niche other than just being local.

In this market, where Radio 2, Century, and Rock are well established, is there really a demand for another 25-44 AC music station? If there are incumbents who are already delivering this product with good results, is it really good enough these days to think that just because you're more local, people will listen to you instead?

In Oldham, another 25-54 AC music proposition of The Revolution was refocused to play indie/rock. Perhaps they conceded they would be better in the long term to target a different audience, than trying to take a small slice from R2, Century and Key's cake.

By finding a better niche - other than just being local, I think that the smaller local stations can be more successful and not just poorer imitations of better products.

I would have thought the team from the Burn are long gone and couldn't give a toss, personally.

As for the rajar results - it all looks a bit wrong to me. A reach of 5% all listening for 3 hours a day. Any other station in the country would kill to have 19.5 hours. Rock, Century and Smooth are all less than half, at below 10 average hours.

If the product really is that bad, why do those 5% listen 3 hours a day, every day?

I would think the station needs to wait for the next few rajra results before they start changing anything.

The only thing these figures prove is that rajar is a crock of [censored].

We know what Rajar may be ..but sales , pc's ,owners all base their life on the rajars.........

I think the bee needs to act now , with more stations joining the radio market each year ..proud may hit them hard as may the new smooth and the gmg century ..a small station cant compete with the big boys .. and I think its wrong to sell the station because its not working .. to sell is to give into the system , to look at the problem and build on the answer makes the idea of running a station to only goal... act now .. as we dont know which station will nick your listeners in the next 6 months............. maybe the answer invest in quality presenters not rsl/media student type.. for me the station only has two who are class acts ..one at breakfast and the other in the afternoon

The team from the Burn have not gone away....most of us live and work in the Bee TSA, and if not they can still hear it in Preston, Blackpool and North East Lancs, I Don't think you can hear it in Edinburgh,as I said the first Rajar is always bad for any new station,let's see the next rajar.......

Absolute nonsense.

Prince,Have you or do work in Radio? Rajar can make or break any new format

pat - there was no comments to back up his claim mate, so i would not look too deeply into that - but yes your right about the Rajar for new stations/formats - as they dont have anything to look back on and say hey this needs improving, or that needs improving - so you have to start from somewhere.

But mind what do I know, ive only done RSLs so im not the best to comment on this kind of thing - but at least I have give a reason for my comment lol!

Hope all is well pat mate

First RAJAR's

Century 105 - 15% Reach

Galaxy 105-106 - 19% Reach

Kerrang 105.2 - 9% Reach

I was just pointing out that it's incorrect to say that 'the first RAJAR is ALWAYS bad for ANY new station'. That's not true. I've just grabbed three examples from the RAJAR website to prove the point. If you launch well, you will get the results in RAJAR. It's easy to blame RAJAR but they don't just make it up. That's all I'm saying.

How accurate is rajar anyway...It must be a nervous task to take on a small local station these days the buzz must be overwhelming at first then it starts to not go as planned with all the intense competition around, only this week we heard that the Bee has only got 5% reach on its first rajar sweep and more changes are going on with 2br and some local stations starting to feel the need to centerlise their output. Its very difficult now for small stations compared with 10 years ago...there is now so much choice and so many alternatives for a listener to choose. Abbey FMs manager only this week has stood down and that station is now being run by Amanda Bell from the radio business for the time being.

http://www.nwemail.co.uk/news/viewarticle.aspx?id=466315

The Bee has a lot of competition aswell - Again very hard now for small stations to get advertising as there is always some other bigger platform around for eg. There is a small station and a larger established station thats been around for years and established itself in the local area, A lot of advertisers will say "I may aswell pay a few quid more to advertise on the bigger station" and cover a wider area than to advertise on the smaller station that has to yet prove itself. its like going into a clothes shop and looking at a new jacket and then the staff comming over to you saying can i help the reaction is 98% we say no thanks im ok i know what i have come here for and what i want to buy, Its similar for companies they know what works best for them for advertising and if they have always used a particular brand for their advertising they are weary to give something else a go.

Then to get them on you have to do them "a good deal" they think great i will go for that but the danger is always eventually you have to increase the rate to make it viable...and once you do this the client/advertiser is more likley to say "i think i will leave it for now" and go back to the larger station again.

It is so hard for small stations and feel for the managers, sales and presenters as it must make them feel uneasy after giving all they have to a station only to get [censored] rajar results but they should not give up and im sure they wont they will keep going and working flat out which im sure they will do and next rajar may be better.

After all...rajar is never 100% accurate anyway and never will be, but you need it to have some sort of audiance research to take to your potential advertisers.

Revenue and listeners get the 2 and you are sorted

[ Edited Sun Feb 18 2007, 11:09AM ]

So what method of ratings gathering is accurate? Like it or not The Bee is now having to sell on the fact it only has 5%..

Interesting about the manager from The Bees sister station 'Abbey FM' - I wonder if he is heading back down south the input his management style at The Bee?

So in truth it would be better for all small stations close down ...those that cant bring in air time costs..then the bigger stations can take over. uk radio full time .. or the small stations work a bit harder to keep their listeners and provide a good product... remember about 10 years ago small stations the breakfast prester was the pc ,the drive time presenter worked in traffic... cut out the unwanted suits at each station.. ......or just give in to group radio with voice track shows and night time networking

[ Edited Sun Feb 18 2007, 11:58PM ]

Small stations do work well if it is all thought out, I get sick of hearing stations playing the same Predictable stuff.

I was once involved with a popular adult station and there was always a policy of new music having to be the same as the license format and anything that wasnt didnt get aired (even if it was at no1) but now it seems to go out of the window and any old [censored] is put in, just because its in the top 10 or at no1.

For instance a while ago you would hear the likes of Fredde Le Grand Put your hands up for detroit, 50 cent in da club on stations like rock fm but now this genre gets onto playlists on stations aimed at the older listener.

Music will make or break a station just as much as its local content and if a listener likes a station because it is playing songs like the 4 tops, roy orbison, Elvis, celine dion, rod stewart, etc...then when they hear dance music or a genre that dosent fit the formatt just because its in the charts the listener is more than likely to think what a load of rubbish and switch off into something else. Its when this happens its harder to get them back again.

[ Edited Mon Feb 19 2007, 03:14PM ]

What stations aimed at the older listener plays them then? (Outside of Hit 40 UK if they carry it)

For me, the first clanger the Bee dropped was their location, it's as prominent as a needle in a haystack.
The location could be an advert 24 / 7

If you asked 100% of locals where the Bee is, they wouldn't have the foggiest idea.

Just a couple of examples..
Rock FM - Main roadside
City FM - Tower
I know they are far bigger stations, but both their locations are fabulous in terms of 'in yer face'

In the early days of ILR radio stations took over small pubs for the studios .. so the building had passing trade.. even if was just the listeners asking for a car sticker... so the stations life was build in the middle of of busy areas known by companies who wanted air time and listeners who passed by the building for work or shopping.. rather than in a small unit off a motorway

I do think the good old days of ILR are well and truely in the past. The days when people popped in for a car sticker only excist in the minds of those would-be or past-it presenters. Also known as anoraks.

I've heard many times on The Bee ' live from Dalton Court in Darwen ' now I don't know where that is personally but I'm sure it means something to the yocals.

I wouldn't have thought the location of a radio station is a real clanger. At least they are based in the same area they broadcast to, which over the coming month and years we will see this simple thing in life become rare.