Scottish Sun looking to generate big noise with radio stations

Comment John Mclellan

Ayear since News UK acquired the Belfast-based commercial radio business Wireless Group and the Murdoch-owned publisher of The Sun and Times is ready to launch a serious bid to extend the Scottish Sun’s brand on to the airwaves permanently.

The Scottish operation, News Scotland, has been testing the market with pop-up stations Scottish Sun Summer and Scottish Sun Xmas, the latter back for a second stint of non-stop Christmas hits until Mariah, Noddy and the Wombles are packed away on 27 December.

But the pop-ups will turn into three new stations, Scottish Sun Hits, Sun 80s and Scottish Sun Greatest Hits which will, if the marketing is successful, be blaring out from a building site near you from 1 January, and the publicity campaign got into full swing with a launch event last night.

Wireless broadcasts Talksport and Virgin Radio but commercial radio in Scotland is still very much dominated by the duopololy of Bauer, the conglomeration of the big regional stations like Clyde, Forth and Northsound, and Global’s stable of powerful music-based channels Capital Scotland, Smooth, Heart, and Classic FM.

The Radio Joint Audience Research (Rajar) figures for the quarter ending in October show Clyde 1 is still the biggest, with a reach of 543,000 listeners, closely followed by Capital on 510,000, but both lost audience compared to the same period last year, with Clyde down a whopping 17.7 per cent and Capital 14.1. Next biggest is Smooth, down 1.2 per cent on 415,000 and then Forth 1, the star performer with a 16.9 per cent increase to 38,000.

For some reason, radio is less popular in Scotland than England, with 87 per cent of people tuning in at least once a week, compared to the UK average of 89.6. But according to Ofcom, commercial stations are 8 per cent more popular in Scotland than in the UK, with commercial stations accounting for 53 per cent of listening hours in 2017. Therefore the total commercial radio market is 46 per cent of the population, based on people listening for as little as five minutes a week. By comparison, 57 per cent read a daily newspaper at least once a week.

But radio remains popular for public sector marketing, particularly campaigns aimed at promoting healthy lifestyles, and in 2016 the Scottish Government spent more than £7 million on public information and marketing campaigns. So as well at extending the Scottish Sun brand and promoting the paper, if the new stations are successful it will strengthen News Scotland’s offer when pitching for lucrative government contracts.

As the Scottish Sun’s launch in the 80s showed, when they mean business it usually spells trouble for the rest of the market. Global in particular should be nervous. ● John Mclellan is director of the Scottish Newspaper Society