Radio Plymouth - Ofcom Licensing

RADIO PLYMOUTH
37% of the sample had either not advertised on the radio for at least 12 months or had never used
radio advertising. Two-thirds of these businesses would be either “very” or “quite likely” to advertise
on Radio Plymouth. This is an encouraging figure and a sign that Radio Plymouth could attract both
lapsed and non-radio advertisers, helping to increase radio’s share of the advertising cake.
“We found Radio Plymouth a fantastic way to market and publicise our company. The
target audience is perfect for us and we would definitely use Radio Plymouth to
advertise should you win the full time licence”.
Conclusions for Radio Plymouth
Christopher & James Tanner, Tanners Restaurant
Plymouth’s famous celebrity restaurant
Our survey suggests a migration from other media such as newspapers and directories and into
radio, which can only be good for the medium. More optimistically, perhaps the advertising cake as
a whole will expand. Certainly, our desk research shows an underdeveloped radio advertising
market in the city. Radio Plymouth intends to help radio punch its weight: we will employ seasoned
media sales professionals who can fight for the medium as much as for Radio Plymouth, and who
can attract new radio advertisers as well as grow the share from existing ones.
Indeed, the sectors saying they would be very or quite likely to advertise is satisfyingly broad. From
retailers in photography and kitchen, through motoring, leisure (holidays, eating out, clubs) to
professional services (training, legal and property), a new radio station will be well-supported by a
range of Plymouth businesses.
(g) Monitoring (Conducted in Plymouth in two waves).
Wave 1: Spring 2005, assessed the output of Plymouth Sound, Classic Gold, South Hams
Radio, Pirate FM, BBC Radio Devon (Plymouth FM frequency).
In the spring of 2005, we monitored the output of local commercial stations and BBC Radio Devon
for hour-long segments during three distinct day parts. This basic monitoring was done to help us
understand the news, speech and music ratios of the existing and contiguous stations that could
have a relevance to Plymouth.
Commercials
We were surprised at the sheer volume of commercials being run by some stations, particularly at
breakfast and drivetime. As can be seen from the summary below, if one adds sponsorship
announcements, station idents and jingles to the commercial minuteage – the kind of output that
listeners could reasonably expect to consider “commercial” in nature – almost a third of output on
Plymouth Sound and Pirate FM was commercial in our first-wave monitoring, which at breakfast was
an assessment of 7 to 8 am.
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