The share of listening to radio via a DAB set has fallen in the last three months, from 15.8 per cent to 15.3 per cent.
"Digital" listening now represents almost one quarter of all RAJAR figures, but analogue radio’s share of listening up from 67.0 per cent to 67.6 per cent quarter-on quarter.
Internet listening is also down, but overall digital activity has increased mostly thanks to a slight increase in radio consumption via digital television.
Ford Ennals, Chief Executive of Digital Radio UK is not worried: “We’ve achieved a step change in digital listening growth in 2010 and we see that sustained in Q3, with 17.5 per cent year on year growth. The Digital Radio Action Plan aims to create a further step change in digital listening in 2011, when we should begin to see the benefits of investment in coverage, content, communications and cars. Absolute Radio’s success shows that compelling and distinctive digital content and strong cross promotion is a healthy digital model for the future.”
However, blogger [link=http://grantgoddardradioblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/dab-radio-usage-going-nowhere-slowly.html]Grant Goddard points out[/link]: "The verdict of UK radio listeners on DAB seems perfectly transparent in the RAJAR data, though many in the radio industry still refuse to listen. On the other hand, the activities of Digital Radio UK, still trying to persuade us of DAB’s virtues, are anything but transparent. After 10 months of existence, its [link=http://www.digitalradiouk.com/]web site [/link]remains empty. And the [link=http://www.drdb.org/]web site[/link] of its forerunner, the Digital Radio Development Bureau, has been conveniently deleted so that all the empty promises, inaccurate forecasts and ridiculous propaganda that were generated about DAB over the last eight years are no longer publicly available."