talkSPORT: “Why have we done so well… investment in content is key”
Marnie Virdee, head of sales operations at talkSPORT, explains why last week’s RAJAR release wasn’t an “artificial blip”; what talkSPORT is doing to help commercial radio compete on a level playing field; and how the station copes with not having “the same deep pockets as the BBC” when it comes to sports rights…
Commercial v BBC? – What are we doing?
We were recently asked by a media panel what we are doing here to promote commercial radio. Our response then is the same as now – we are providing a real challenge to the BBC by actively bringing live sports to the commercial sector and demonstrating how to make it work.
Three years ago we broke an eighty-year BBC monopoly by winning the second pick Premier League package. This year we won two exclusive packages and were the only broadcaster to have every game from the FIFA World Cup. Add to this the exclusive rights to next year’s Rugby World Cup, and the fact that the BBC won’t have any live coverage of this, and you can see why talkSPORT’s numbers have increased by 20%.
This year in particular has seen a real shift in how talkSPORT is perceived, and its position as a genuine commercial competitor to BBC 5Live. Speech radio is arguably radio’s most expensive format, and when you couple that with the cost of acquiring live rights against a dominant competitor, you realise it’s no small feat to close the gap by over 900,000 listeners in one quarter.
Commercial radio is a difficult business, equally so for those stations that have to compete with the likes of BBC Radio One and Two. For us it is important that talkSPORT does its bit and provides the same kind of challenge so that in the long term commercial radio can compete on a more level playing field.
Positive RAJAR is endorsement of investment
The latest RAJAR has been an excellent one for commercial radio. For talkSPORT, with a record weekly reach of almost three million and listening hours close to 22 million it was, to be honest, even better than we anticipated.
We felt this was definitely achievable given the investment and strategy we had put in place. The numbers seem to back the story rather than feel like an artificial blip.
One key factor in our strategy was the research we commissioned called ‘Sports Connectors’, which identified what fans wanted from their sports media. On the back of this we then made bold purchases like the FA Premier League and Rugby World Cup with the aim of taking a quantum leap in audience, but did this while creating the right content across the schedule.
While the World Cup no doubt helped the station and drove trial, this RAJAR period only included two weeks out of the 12 and this too was after England were out of the tournament. Our new exclusive Barclays Premier League packages have also been a factor but again these only started two thirds of the way through the period. For talkSPORT, it’s comforting to know that these results are not down to one single factor and live commentary alone is no guarantee of success, it needs to be in the right environment. That environment takes good presenters and good shows over a period of time that communicates with sports fans.
Shift in sports rights on radio
Commercial radio companies are not blessed with the same deep pockets as the BBC and have the burden of having to deliver ROI.
But it is hugely important that we provide them with competition, and recent rule changes in the way live sports rights are acquired have shown that, given the opportunity, we too can deliver content that audiences appreciate. It is important that consumers have a choice, because we need a commercial station that can deliver sport to an engaged audience of the type that advertisers want to reach. This in turn leads to further investment and the delivery of even bigger audiences.
This latest RAJAR provides tangible evidence of the efforts right across commercial radio but the challenge now is to do even better next time, and prove this is no fluke.