Rajar Q3 2015: Round-up

National stations and networks

With a weekly reach of 22 million listeners following a 4.3% quarterly increase, Total Global Radio remains the best performing national network, followed by the total Bauer portfolio (up 1.1% QoQ) and BBC Radio 2 (up 1.6% QoQ).

The majority of stations were up on the previous quarter, with some of the more significant boosts in weekly listenership belonging to BBC 1Xtra (19.9% QoQ), Global’s Capital XTRA and XFM Network (up 15.7% and 17.6%, respectively), and, fulfilling all those Brit Pop needs, Bauer’s Absolute Radio 90s (up 16.7%).

BBC stations performed well across the board over the quarter, with BBC 6 Music recording its highest reach figure to date, up 6.5% to a little under 2.2 million.

Click here for the full breakdown.

Digital

Listening to radio via a digital platform – in terms of weekly reach – now exceeds over half (56%) of the UK adult population – representing a “tipping point” for digital.

30 million people (aged 15+) now tune in to radio via a digitally enabled receiver – DAB, television or online – each week, with the share of all radio listening via a digital platform now standing at 41.9%, up from 37.8% for the corresponding period last year.

The share of listening to DAB has increased by 14% year on year to 27.7% of all listening (24.5% in Q3, 2014).

Digital listening in an average week now stands at 433 million hours.

Click here for the full breakdown.

Breakfast

National

Perhaps a result of the summer holidays and not having to wake the kids for school (or get up for school, for that matter), the majority of national stations recorded a decline in breakfast listeners, with just two up on the previous quarter.

Starting with the positives, Classic FM’s weekly reach increased by 1.8% compared with the previous quarter and a healthy 4.7% year on year – the greatest increases of all the breakfast slots.

BBC Radio 4 was also up by 1.2% quarter on quarter to a little under 6.8 million weekly listeners, securing its place as the second most popular national breakfast slot.

Despite a small -2.8% decline in listeners over the quarter, BBC Radio 2’s ever-popular Chris Evans breakfast slot maintained its crown with a little over 9.4 million fans tuning in each week. The show was also up 1.3% YoY.

BBC Radio 1’s breakfast show, which has seen listenership waver up and down since Nick Grimshaw took over in 2012, seems to have steadied its audience, with weekly reach down just -1% QoQ and -0.8% YoY.

Not such good news for BBC stations elsewhere, however, with BBC Radio 3 down -14.3% QoQ and BBC Radio Five Live down -5.5% QoQ. Five Live also recorded the greatest yearly decline in weekly listeners, down -15.3%.

TalkSPORT figures mirrored those of Five Live but to a lesser degree, with weekly reach down -2.6% over the quarter and -7.6% over the year, while Absolute Radio was down -3.3% QoQ.

London

There were some significant declines in listeners across London stations’ breakfast shows; however, the results are largely in line with Q3 2014.

Global’s Heart London recorded one of the greatest quarterly declines, down a massive -42.1% QoQ to 514,000 listeners. However, over the year the three-hour morning slot was down just -2.3%, signposting a generally solid breakfast audience for the station.

Still the most popular London breakfast station, Global’s Capital London was down -14.5% QoQ to 980,000, while LBC, LBC London News and Capital XTRA, also owned by Global, were down -17.2%, -22.2% and -7.8%, respectively.

However, Capital XTRA was up a massive 75% year on year, while Global’s XFM London and Gold London were two of the few stations to boost weekly listenership over the quarter, up 9.4% and 10.8%, respectively.

Bauer’s Magic London, the second most-listened to station, followed suit with a -16.4% quarterly decline, while Kiss London fared much better, dropping just -1.4% of its listeners compared with Q2.

Smooth Radio performed well in the third quarter, up 11.9% to 311,000 weekly listeners, alongside BBC London (up 4.4% QoQ) and Sunrise Radio (up 23.5% QoQ).

After cutting its running time by an hour, Premier Christian Radio lost 65.1% of its weekly listeners.