Original Sin

Original 106 spent a million pounds marketing their new radio station.

They had television adverts during Coronation Street. Huge billboards across Portsmouth and Southampton. The back of the buses proudly declared: "Original 106. For people that [sic] have got something going on upstairs."

They broadcast to a potential audience of over a million listeners. They have Sony award winners Simon James and Hill heading up their breakfast show. And they've been selling advertising with the warm, rich promise of 10% of Hampshire's radio market.

Today, on the day the Radio Audience Joint Research figures come out (telling people exactly who listens to what station) the boys at Original were brave enough to release this preemptive advert in the Southern Daily Echo and The Portsmouth News.

Yet when the figures came in, did they match Original's expectations?

Sadly not. Not by a long shot.

Compared to their rivals, Power FM, Ocean and Wave 105 - all of whom deliver almost 200 to 300 thousand listeners per week - Original sailed in with a disappointing 27,000 weekly listeners. Less even than Southampton's local football station, The Saint.

It was shocking. Made worse by the fact that their determined and able sales team had been out selling packages on the expectation of five times that market share. If the boys at Original 106 think they're disappointed by this showing, I imagine it's nothing to what their advertisers are feeling. They've been paying Wave 105 prices for Saint listening figures.

A while ago, I predicated the fate of Original 106. I even had a bit of banter with radio legend Simon James about it. You can read my predictions here.

I'd never expected anything quite like this!

I think it's down to a variety of factors. Their obscure track listing confuses and infuriates the listeners. Some of their presenters are sophomoric, whereas Simon James and Hill, the headliners of Original 106, are irreverent and unpredictable. Original 106 wanted to deliver something different - but the reason most commercial radio stations sound the same is because listeners don't want anything different.

They just want the music they love and as few commercials as possible, with none of that Smashy and Nicey crap (at least nobody could accuse Simon James & Hill of being cheesy.)

That being said, I don't think Original 106's poor showing can entirely be blamed on their slightly queer choice of output. As much as we in the radio industry love to boast about how much more accurate RAJAR figures are in comparison to press 'readership' (generated by multiplying sales by some arbitrary number) the truth is that neither method really gives a fair indication of who's tuning (or reading) in.

RAJAR diaries are complicated little buggers. Given that the average reader doesn't necessarily know who they're listening to at any given time (we had plenty of listeners at WinFM who rang in thinking they were tuned to Wave) it's pretty fair to say Original might have reached a lot more listeners than RAJAR claims they did.

Nobody knows for sure. And when it comes to calculating costs, none of the agencies are going to care. Original 106 is going to take a pretty big hit over these RAJAR figures, but at least they have one thought to sustain them as they struggle through the next few months.

The only way is up.

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In reference to their advert - from a starting point of 0 listeners, a gain of 27,000 DOES make Original 106 the fastest growing radio station in the south. It's very pedantic, but it doesn't make it a lie.