Radio Plymouth - Ofcom Licensing

RADIO PLYMOUTH
The perceived relative paucity of music available on other stations is also much commented on.
This response is typical: “There used to be more music, but now it seems to be more and more chitchat,
which gets on my nerves” (female, B, 40). This lady was speaking about Plymouth Sound,
which she turned to originally for the mix of local news with music. Others have made the switch to
stations playing what they perceive to be “better music”.
“I listen to Pirate. I’m at home all day, so I listen to the radio a lot, and I listen to Radio Devon which I
enjoy for the talking, but on Pirate, I like the music” (female, C1, 45).
This comment supports data from our main telephone survey. Many people are listening to a service
from out of the county because the music is more suited to their needs – but they also want
meaningful speech aimed at them and their locality.
Conclusions for Radio Plymouth
Radio Plymouth need not define itself by the competition, but should it wish to do so, it should look
at the music policy of Pirate FM and Radio 2, rather than Plymouth Sound. Our data shows that
some music should have a slightly harder edge than other services, with fewer ballads than one
might hear on Radio 2 and Radio Devon. There should be more music at breakfast than existing
services. We will achieve this by providing more tracks per hour at breakfast and in the evenings
than other services, achieved by fewer commercials and crisper links.
It is imperative that a new station achieves an optimum balance between music and speech. Music
is more important than speech, and “good music” is obviously better than bad. Similarly, speech too
must be good speech, not bad. People have strong opinions on what’s bad: factual, informative
speech, that can still be fun, is preferable to inane chat by presenters who are trying to be
something they can probably never be – national stars.
Plymouth Sound’s music policy seems to be not much liked by our potential audience. Pirate FM’s
music is more palatable but the speech content is not targeted at Plymouth residents and Classic
Gold does not make a huge impact. By marrying a more interesting musical output with meaningful
content for Plymouth, an undoubted need can be met.
Will they listen?
Nine out of ten respondents (88%) are very or quite likely to listen to a new radio station aimed at
Plymouth in our core age range of 35 to 54 year olds. Other age bands score highly too, with one
exception: young adults 15-24 at 73% (men) and 78% (women). This is still three out of four people
who say they would listen, although a considerable drop from 88%. Once again, it appears that the
youngest age band would be less likely to use a new service than their older neighbours.
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