Masti Radio - Ofcom Licensing

But of all ‘mainstream’ (non-Asian) stations, only the results obtained by Galaxy 102
came anywhere close to those of Asian Sound Radio in our original survey, which is
shown to reach 46.6% of Asian radio listeners aged 15-24 in an average week. In our
more recent (July 2006) survey the relative positions of these two stations is reversed
with Galaxy taking a clear lead with 44.9%. The popularity of Galaxy is explained
because young Asians like certain Western music styles, having grown up with them, in
particular ‘Urban’ forms especially R’n’B. That’s why we intend to include such styles in
our main daytime music policy.
And the fact the roots of such music are in Black culture lies at the heart of our idea to
also target Black listeners at specific times. (Further details and research results relating
to music preferences are summarised elsewhere in the Programming section).
Audience Levels to Asian Sound Radio
Firstly, on the basis that Asian Sound Radio attracted a weekly audience of 72% of the
504 Asian radio listeners in our first survey, we estimated that would be equivalent to
(Rajar style) weekly reach of 31.39% using our original 1,156 sample as a base. Our
newer survey – this time only of people in Masti Radio’s primary 15-34 target age range
– found Asian Sound to reach 28.6% of Asian radio listeners. Nonetheless, that figure
still made it the second most listened-to station among young Asians, though rather a
long way behind the clear market leader Galaxy.
2006 Listener Study
Overleaf is a table summarising the findings of our July 2006 listening survey, relating to
a question asking what radio stations respondents listen to on a regular basis. As with
our first survey the percentages shown are of actual radio listeners in each ethnic group.
rather than weekly reach of all adults (Rajar style).
Once again, the impression given from these new results is that people in the ethnic
groups find it difficult to be very enthusiastic about all but a handful of stations, with
many of the traditionally ‘biggest’ ones (apart from Galaxy and Key) failing to register
anything like the number of listeners they do among the main population. So although
Key 103 does relatively well, quite a way ahead of Radio 1, network stations like Radio 2
fail to register at all with young Asian and Black listeners.
Results that stand out are the strong following of Galaxy across all groups (though the
Chinese appear a little less enthusiastic and seem at times to prefer similar stations to
older white listeners). The fact that Smooth FM’s soul/motown led output is more popular
than 1Xtra among young Black listeners is interesting, as is their preference for a
mystery ‘other commercial local station’ (a pirate maybe?). Finally the comparatively
strong following among Asians for London’s Club Asia is very encouraging as it’s the
nearest currently available format in Manchester to the one we propose.
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