RAJAR Results Q2 2002- National Stations

This year’s World Cup was expected to benefit radio listening due to the time difference with host nations Japan and Korea. A year on year comparison of listening for the national sports stations seems to suggest this was the case. BBC Radio 5 Live, which carried live match commentary, saw a significant increase in weekly reach, echoed at TalkSPORT. New sport station TEAMtalk 252, rumoured this week to have gone off air, registered an opening reach of 415,000. The World Cup effect was also witnessed at BBC Radio 5 Live and TalkSPORT in terms of share.

Once again, BBC Radio 2 showed its continuing popularity, with an 11% increase in reach keeping it comfortably in the lead among the national stations. Also doing well is Classic FM, which saw a 5.6% increase in reach and a 0.6 percentage point share increase.

In contrast to sport and the more sedate offerings of BBC Radio 2 and Classic FM, national stations catering for younger audiences had a hard time this quarter. Both BBC Radio 1 and Virgin Radio AM lost out in reach and share.

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