Rajar Q2 2013: Round-up

Rajar has today announced that 91% of the adult (15+) UK population – 48.3 million adults – tuned in to their selected radio stations in the second quarter of 2013, up by approximately 1.5 million adults on Q2 2012.

The total average number of weekly hours listened to radio for this quarter is 1.03 billion.

Here is Newsline’s round-up of the results for the national stations and networks and the Digital, London and Breakfast markets.

National stations and networks

Total Global Radio UK maintained its dominance over the national stations and networks when it came to weekly reach, according to the latest Rajar results – up 4.4% year on year (YoY) to a total of 20,164,000 listeners each week, the first time since 2011 it has reached more than 20 million.

BBC Radio 2 followed with just short of 15.5 million weekly listeners – up 1.1% quarter on quarter (QoQ) and 6.8% YoY.

BBC Radio 1 fared slightly better this quarter after the blow it took in Q1. Despite being down -2.2% YoY, the station was up 7.4% in Q2 – a welcome shift from the -7.5% recorded at the start of the year, partly matched with improved figures for breakfast host Nick Grimshaw. The station secured an average of 11 million listeners per week.

Bauer’s new acquisition, Absolute Radio, has performed strongly with Absolute 80s up 19% QoQ and Total Absolute Radio Network up 15.8% QoQ amongst other well performing stations in the Absolute network.

Likewise, Bauer Radio will be celebrating its highest ever audience, reaching 14 million listeners for the first time, with the network’s Passion Portfolio seeing healthy quarterly and yearly increases, up 12.8% and 14.5%, respectively.

Click here to see an in-depth look at the nationals and networks.

Digital

The share of all radio listening via a digital platform was up in Q2 2013 – currently standing at 36.8%, compared to 31.5% for the corresponding period last year.

52.5% of the UK population tune in to digital radio each week, up 15% YoY, with 27.9 million people now tuning in via a digitally enabled receiver (DAB) each week. 24 million adults currently have access to a DAB receiver.

Digital listening hours for the quarter increased 16% from 326 million hours in Q2 2012 to 378 million, and DAB remains the most popular device when it comes to listening to digital radio, accounting for 65% of all digital hours.

Click here for an in-depth look at digital..

London

With a quarterly growth figure of 12.2%, Capital London continues to lead the weekly reach chart with almost 2.2 million listeners.

Kiss 100 FM moves into second position with a very strong performance in Q2, up 24.2% (and 15.7% year on year) to secure an extra 392,000 listeners since Q1.

Heart London takes third place, up 10% QoQ to reach over 1.9 million listeners.

Not such good news for Q1’s second place holder Magic 105.4 – which slipped into fourth place after a small QoQ increase of just 0.8 % (-3.9% YoY).

The highest growth levels for the second quarter belong to Choice FM London – up 43.8% QoQ and 29% YoY to bag 680,000 listeners each week – an increase of 207,000 on Q1.

A shock for XFM London after sound growth in Q1 with a QoQ change of -24% to see it settle at 436,000 listeners – however, the station is still up 4.6% YoY.

Overall, 12 out of the top 17 London stations in the Rajar analysis recorded growth in weekly reach year on year, whilst only 5 recorded declines – a vast improvement on the previous quarter.

Meanwhile, there was little change for the share of listening comparisons at most stations with the largest decline at Absolute Radio London, down just -0.3 percentage points YoY.

LBC 97.3 recorded the highest YoY growth in share of listeners with a 1.1 percentage point change

For total listening hours, LBC 97.3 continued to record the longest time per listener despite being down -6.7% QoQ to secure 9.8 hours.

Premier Christian Radio moved into second place for Q2 with growth of 38%, knocking Gold London into third position with 8.2 hours per listener (down 17.2% QoQ).

Breakfast

National

BBC Radio 1’s Breakfast Show, hosted by Nick Grimshaw, has seen a small change in fortunes since the first quarter of 2013 – up 1.8% with a reach of 5.9 million. However, although not as severe as last quarter’s year-on-year results, the breakfast show was still down -15% on Q2 2012.

Meanwhile, Chris Evans’ BBC Radio 2 slot was down marginally quarter on quarter, -0.5% to reach over 9.7 million listeners – but still up 8.9% year on year, securing the highest yearly growth.

Good news for talkSPORT, up 12.4% QoQ – the largest growth in the market and the station’s highest ever results – to reach over 1.4 million listeners (up 7.9% YoY).

Similarly, Total Absolute Radio Network grew 8.8% this quarter to reach over 1.5 million listeners – with yearly growth up 7.5%.

Global’s Classic FM and Bauer’s Kiss UK both improved on Q1’s performance with increases of 4.8% and 1.8%, respectively, whilst BBC Radio FIVE LIVE was up 3.2% on Q1, but down -2.1% YoY.

Not so good news for BBC Radio 3 which, after a solid start to the year, saw the largest quarterly drop of -12.6%, shedding 89,000 listeners and down -14.9% YoY.

London

Global continues to lead the London breakfast show slots with Capital London remaining at the top of the charts with just over 1.1 million listeners – and saw an improvement on the start of the year, with Q2 up 3.4%.

Heart London followed in second place, up 15% over the quarter with 883,000 unique listeners tuning in – and up an impressive 20.3% over the year.

In third place, with a huge 32.7% quarterly growth figure was Bauer’s Kiss 100FM, securing an extra 213,000 listeners to reach 864,000.

After a very strong first quarter, Global’s XFM London saw the biggest percentage decrease across the London stations, down -30.3% QoQ, but up 3.4% YoY and securing 182,000 listeners.

Smooth Radio, after disappointing Q1 results, was only down -1.2% QoQ and up 26.1 YoY.

London