Rajar Q4 2023: Commercial radio hits record share of listening

Commercial radio now accounts for 54.8% of all national listening, according to Q4 Rajar figures — a record share of listening compared with the BBC, whose share fell to 43.2%.

As such, commercial radio now has 7.8m more listeners than the BBC in total — an increase of 3m from Q4 2022.

The top-performing individual station, BBC Radio 2, has seen weekly reach fall by over 1m in the past year (down 7%) to 13.3m.

BBC local stations as a group has also taken a hit and has now dipped below 7m listeners. The decline follows the BBC’s controversial decision to cut its regional radio output last year as part of an effort to modernise its local news offering.

In contrast, Global and Bauer both managed to increase reach in Q4, with Bauer’s year-on-year weekly reach growing at a faster clip (+8.8% to 21.8m) than Global (+1.5% to 25.2m), which owns Capital, LBC, Heart and Smooth.

Heart and Capital remain the two largest commercial brands by weekly reach, growing 6.1% and 3.2% respectively over the past year.

Bauer operates Absolute Radio, Kiss, Magic and Greatest Hits Radio, the latter of which drove a substantial proportion of Bauer’s growth. Ken Bruce joining Greatest Hits last winter in part propelled the station to 69.8% growth in weekly reach this year to 6.8m.

“Despite an increasingly fragmented media landscape, commercial radio is bigger than ever and continues to deliver a growing audience, which couldn’t be better news for advertisers,” said Matt Payton, CEO of commercial radio industry body Radiocentre. “As the Media Bill continues to progress through parliament, the record numbers tuning in online and via smart speakers also reminds us just how important the radio elements of the legislation will be for stations and their devoted listeners.”

On Tuesday, the Media Bill passed its third reading in the House of Commons and will now move to the House of Lords for consideration. The legislation includes measures to support UK radio on voice-activated devices such as smart speakers, as well as reductions in regulatory burdens on commercial radio stations.