Blog: Reinvention of London's Absolute Radio

It was a rock n’ roll radio station, but when it found itself on the cutting edge of the media consumers, Absolute Radio took the opportunity to reinvent itself, reports the Economic Times.

As Clive Dickens, Chief Operating Officer, Absolute Radio says: “We see ourselves as a digital entertainment brand that has a radio station attached!” In its home market of the UK, 75% of homes have broadband, and close to 20 million people — 33% of the population - are online everyday, spending an average of 60 minutes online every day.

And with more than 70 million mobile phone connections, virtually every adult in The UK has a mobile. So instead of giving a makeover to the well-recognised but ageing Virgin brand, Absolute Radio decided to go all on other electronic frontiers, when it acquired the 40-year old brand in October 2008. “You offer your audiences what they want or else they’ll find it elsewhere,” explains Dickens. “So if that means as a radio station we need to give our audience’s videos, web experiences, podcasts or concert tickets ... we give it.

” Opening up new avenues to engage with the audience has paid off for Absolute Radio — while RAJAR measures its weekly listenership at 12.04 Million hours, the station’s web audience has streamed 22 million hours since its relaunch, making the website one of the top sites for music and entertainment. And the draw of its entertainment is strong not just in The UK – its online listeners are from 160 countries across the globe. “We create content for today’s digital savvy global audience,” says Dickens.

These audiences are quite different from the traditional ‘radio listener’ — they’re listening to their music via their Facebook pages, on their PlayStations as podcasts on iTunes, not just on their FM and DAB receivers. Recent data shows Absolute Radio had 97,000 downloads for its free radio player for the iPhone within weeks of its launch — becoming the most downloaded app in its category.

Stats like these should make Google’s Android happy as Absolute Radio plans to be one of the first to launch an app for them. “Of course our audience isn’t happy just listening to us. They want and get more than just audio,” adds Dickens. That could be high-definition video of performances by artists in the Absolute studio — including Coldplay’s Chris Martin, U2’s Bono or Lily Allen.

Chris Martin at Absolute Radio studios, 30th January 2009