MacKenzie's radio station is losing listeners
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Kelvin Mackenzie, the ebullient former editor of The Sun , took a beating in his latest role as proprietor of Talk Radio yesterday, when it was revealed that the station lost more than 400,000 listeners during the third quarter of this year.
Kelvin Mackenzie, the ebullient former editor of The Sun , took a beating in his latest role as proprietor of Talk Radio yesterday, when it was revealed that the station lost more than 400,000 listeners during the third quarter of this year.
Mr MacKenzie bought the ailing station last November for £24.7m and vowed to turn it from a chat station, once filled with shock jocks and agony aunts, into a leading sport network. His consortium, which also includes Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, is using Talk as a base to buy other stations and build the country's fourth-largest radio group.
He had aimed to get rid of the station's older women listeners and bring in younger men, a demographic designed to attract advertisers. So far this year Mr MacKenzie has, say his competitors, implemented his policy with a vengeance, buying up exclusive radio rights to broadcast the home legs of European matches for both Manchester United and Newcastle.
He has also outbid the BBC to win the rights to test match cricket, and has exclusive rights on the boxing world championship rematch between Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis.
So far, though, the result of his efforts has been the most dramatic loss of listeners of any radio station this year. Figures released by Rajar, the radio audience monitoring organisation, showed a decline of 17.5 per cent in the number of people tuning in during the week - from 2.8 million in the second quarter, to 1.87 million in the three months to September. The figures were so bad they helped undermine attempts by commercial radio as a whole to win more listeners than the BBC. Its share fell to 47.8 per cent from 49 per cent, while the BBC's share rose to 50.3 per cent from 48.9 per cent.
Rachell Fox, the operations director of the Commercial Radio Companies Association, said yesterday: "Talk Radio has spent six to nine months re-positioning their station ... we expect them not to do as well then there is not as much football being played."
Talk Radio's managing director, Jason Bryant, insists that Mr MacKenzie's plans have not gone awry. While listeners have been leaving in droves, Mr Bryant said that "there has been a 27.3 per cent increase in the number of 25 to 34-year-olds coming to Talk".
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments