With its footprint covering extensive sections of four provinces, Jacaranda 94.2 is South Africa’s largest privately owned regional radio stations by audience size. Jacaranda 94.2 broadcasts in an equal mix of English and Afrikaans and its adult contemporary music format features hits from the 80s to now as well as the best Afrikaans songs.

During the year, Jacaranda 94.2’s core audience remained stable, although its cumulative audience over a seven-day period was down to 2,2 million** (2008: 2,6 million). Increased competition from new licences which were issued, particularly in Limpopo, led to a migration of young black male listeners aged between 16 and 24. Gauteng listenership was relatively unaffected and the station maintained its market leadership in Pretoria. It also comes second among listeners aged from 25 to 49 in the LSM 8 to 10 band in Gauteng.
Jacaranda 94.2 is intent on strengthening its content offering in the year ahead to increase its share of LSM 8 to 10 listeners in the 25 to 49 age group in Gauteng by introducing a number of
Ground-breaking shows in the new fiscal year. Barney Simon will debut on the station with a late night classic rock show. John Vlismas, one of South Africa’s most awarded stand-up comedians, takes up a slot between 22:00 and midnight every Monday, to stir up controversy. The show will be aired simultaneously on East Coast Radio. Afrikaans pop star, Kurt Darren, will broadcast his own weekend show on Sunday afternoons.

Jacaranda 94.2’s investment in perceptual research, a new music study and ongoing listener surveys is providing additional insights which will be used to further enhance the programming mix.

In terms of innovation, the station launched Demo Station, an online platform to encourage garage bands to post their songs online to be rated by Jacaranda 94.2 audiences. The concept has won sponsorship support and over 150 000 unique visitors since its launch in August 2008. The radio station’s ‘Pay your bills’ promotion was developed to help some listeners during the economic downturn when interest rates, coupled with retrenchments, meant that many were losing their homes, cars and livelihoods. It received 750 000 online and SMS-based entries and paid off bills to six fortunate recipients daily, over a nine-month period.

The radio station won the following awards during the year:

• An Assegai Award for the ‘Pay your bills’ concept;
• Breakfast show host, Darren Scott, won Presenter of the Year at the 2008 SA Radio awards;
• Weekend breakfast show host, Andrew Sorrill, was voted ‘Radio presenter of the Year’ at the ATKV Media Veertjie awards; and
• Sports editor, Trevor Cramer, was awarded ‘Best Radio Sports Presenter of the Year’ at the SAB Sports Journalist of the Year awards.

In addition, weekend presenter, Liezel van der Westhuizen was the host of Idols 2009 competition.

Jacaranda 94.2 was also exceptional in its corporate social responsibility initiatives, raising R1,6m and collecting 111 000 blankets to donate to needy South Africans.

* Past seven days, RAMS August 2009/3 ** RAMS 2009/3 (March – June 2009)