Colchester's Dream 100 has posted its worst set of RAJAR figures in 7 years, with 23,000 fewer listeners now tuning in than a year ago. The station's owners Tindle, however, are up on total reach and hours to 318,000 and 3.1m respectively across their 11 UK stations.
Tindle's total reach is up 23,000 compared with Q3/07, and the group added just under 200,000 hours.
It's no dream for staff at the Colchester and Tendring station, where the current 32,000 reach (18 percent) is 5,000 lower than the previous quarter and 23,000 down on the 53,000 listeners per week that tuned in during Q4/06. Add to that the fact that in the last 12 months the station's market share has fallen from 15.4 percent to just 7.5 percent – again, the lowest figure for share the station's had since 2000. Then there's hours: a total of 301,000 now – the last time it was that low was Q2/00. Average hours for the station are now just 9.3 – down more than 3 hours a week per person in the last year.
No such nightmares for the other Dream stations though… Across Essex in Chelmsford things remain fairly constant, while at newly relaunched Dream 107.2 in Hampshire (was Win 107.2) there's a slight drop all round but nothing major.
Back in East Anglia, Tindle's North Norfolk Radio and Town 102 both posted their third set of RAJARs this time out. There's a good increase in hours at North Norfolk to 217,000 (12.9 average) so market share is up too, although reach drops slightly. In Ipswich, Town 102 is back up slightly after a poor Q3 – its 33,000 weekly listeners give the station an 11 percent reach with average hours of 8.4. Another relatively recent arrival on the East Anglian airwaves, Radio Norwich, posts its worst ever reach – down 7,000 quarter on quarter to 25,000. Total hours have dropped too from 204,000 to 172,000 compared with Q3/07. Finally in the East, Lowestoft's The Beach is down on both hours and share.
Not much change for Tindle's constant high performers. Island FM on Guernsey with 25,000 listeners, has a 49 percent reach on the island as well as a 37.7 percent share and average hours of 14.2. Slight increases all round at Jersey's Channel 103 as well.
Finally, nothing major to report up or down at Basingstoke's Kestrel, but a there's a kicking from the listeners to West Berkshire's Kick FM – today's figures are its lowest ever for weekly reach – just 15,000.
Please note: Any figures compared year-on-year are subject to further investigation due to the introduction of a new survey by RAJAR from June '07.