Rajar, the people who work out how popular Chris Moyles is, have just released their latest radio audience figures; and along with the reams of figures that make or break a radio presenter's career, the organisation also releases radio platform figures that reveal exactly how we're listening to the radio.
The headline figure is that radio is more popular now than it's ever been: more people (both in absolute numbers and as a percentage) are tuning into the radio every week than at any time in the last ten years - beating even the pre-Spotify, pre-YouTube era of 2000 - with 90.6% of us listening to the radio at some point during the week.
But today's research also shows that radio's future is a multiplatform future, with listening on new platforms continuing to grow. Digital platforms - an amalgam of DAB digital radio, the internet, and radio on the TV - account for 24.6% of all radio listening, a figure that's up 17% year on year.
DAB digital radio is the most successful digital radio platform in the UK: with 15.8% of all radio listening, it's more than five times more popular than internet radio. Its continued success would seem to underline that audiences value the platform's features above the opinions of any technology critic.
But all digital platforms have increased. Listening to radio over Freeview, FreeSat or Sky has increased to a total of 4.1% of all radio listening; and internet radio has also increased, up by a third year-on-year to 2.9%. Radio is turning increasingly multi-platform - to the chagrin of some in the radio industry who yearn for the old days of one bill for one transmitter - but to the benefit of the medium as a whole.
Talking about platforms is all very well; but the real revolution is around content. Increasingly, the radio industry is beginning to get its digital act together by extending existing radio brands, rather than attempting to develop new ones. Part of this plan is a reflection that digital listening is done by name, not frequency; part is driven by the necessity of a severe advertising recession wiping out such mere fripperies as marketing spend.
The once-threatened BBC 6 Music - BBC Radio 2 Extra in all but name, broadcasting from Radio 2's studios and sharing presenters like Stuart Maconie - continues to show marked success, alongside the BBC Radio 4-run archive station BBC Radio 7, which is to become BBC Radio 4 Extra. BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra, with half a million listeners, and BBC 1Xtra, with 600,000, shows that the BBC’s strategy is paying off.
Absolute Radio has reinvented itself as a network of 'extra' digital radio services alongside its main station: Absolute 80s and Absolute Classic Rock showed increases this quarter, ensuring that, overall, Absolute Radio services enjoy their highest audience since January 2009. Absolute has since launched Absolute Radio 90s this summer, and launch part-time football service Absolute Radio Extra next weekend.
The KMFM family of FM radio services in Kent have also recently launched KMFM Extra on digital, which - while missing from this quarter’s RAJAR figures - promises to offer an alternative listen to listeners in its catchment area.
Even in the analogue space, Global Radio’s strategy to amalgamate a rag-bag of difficult-to-promote local heritage brands under a strong 'Heart' moniker has also reaped rewards, with another 400,000 listeners joining in the last quarter.
Radio's death has regularly been predicted: from the President of the Royal Society, Lord Kelvin, who proclaimed in 1897 that "Radio has no future", to the advent of television, the Walkman, and the iPod. The digital nay-sayers have regularly opined that they see no future for digital radio, or radio as a whole.
RAJAR's figures today, however, would seem to prove not just that audiences love listening to radio on more digital platforms, but that clear brands have never been more important. "Extra" brands, offering more programming from known and familiar brands, might be the future of multi-platform radio.
James Cridland is a radio futurologist, and blogs about the future of radio at