If it wasn’t for Digitalspy… life would be quite, quite boring. We’d all be forced to get hobbies, meet women and speak honestly. Quite at odds with the ‘DS’ way of life.
A thread at the moment providing me with much enjoyment is entitled “Heart should be playing…” . This discussion is dedicated to all the songs that the great unwashed anoracks of the UK think Heart ought to be playing. To be completely fair, SOME of the songs on there would work. But, you guessed it, there are some utterly ridiculous suggestions on that thread. (of course there are, it’s Digitalspy)
What every single person has failed to put in response to the opening gambit is this.
Heart should be playing ‘exactly what they are at the moment’.
Obviously, the product’s not yet perfect. I think the management at Leicester Square would be the first to admit that. OFCOM’s yellow card earlier in the year meant a pretty big rethink had to happen quickly. So, with that in mind, last weeks RAJARs for ‘the network’ should be met with extra praise.
Sadly, it’s become fashionable to ridicule and knock and ‘Heart bash’. I’ve seen it for myself, on discussion forum’s AND Heart presenters Twitter accounts!! But, credit where credit’s due. I’ve only really started to digest the Heart RAJAR results over the last day or so, and there are some very, very impressive results.
(Look – I’m no mathmetician, but I think these are right…k?!)
- Heart Colchester – Best EVER weekly reach for 96.1 since RAJAR began
- Heart Somerset – Now have more listeners than ANY service (BBC or Commercial) in their TSA. Wow.
- Heart Kent – More than 400,000 listeners for the first time since 2006
- Heart Dunstable – More listeners than Radio 1, listening for longer than Radio 1
- Heart Northampton – 40% increase in reach (45,000 new listeners) with a 30% increase in total hours.
There are others, but I wont bore you!
So, congratulations to all involved. I know that’s unfashionable of me – but hey, I was never cool.
I think these results are beginning to prove me right (I love being right). The Heritage names had been abused so much that, at the end, names like 2CR and Hereward FM meant nothing to anyone. They’d been AC stations, Pop stations, Hot AC stations and CHR stations all in the space of three years. Now, the ‘Hot Tap’ theory is being put to the test. So far, so good.
