RAJAR Q3 2009: National Stations

BBC Radio 2 remained the national station with the highest weekly reach in Q3 2009, up by 4.3% year on year to more than 13.6 million listeners.

Radio 1 also witnessed a year on year increase, up by 2.2% to 11.1 million listeners, according to the latest RAJAR figures.

However, BBC Radio 4’s impressive 8.1% year on year rise helped the BBC to maintain its top three lead over rival commercial stations.  BBC Radio 4 now has a weekly reach of more than 10.2 million listeners.

It was also a good quarter for BBC Radio Five Live, which was up by 9.6% year on year to nearly 6.4 million listeners.

However, two of the BBC stations which did not do quite so well this quarter were BBC Asian Network UK and 1Xtra.  Both stations suffered year on year and period on period declines.  BBC Asian Network UK’s weekly reach slipped down to around 350,000 listeners after a 14.8% year on year drop.  1Xtra’s reach, meanwhile, stands at around 550,000 listeners following a 8.8% fall.

Commercial radio had a mixed quarter.  Total LBC and Gold Network enjoyed impressive year on year percentage increases in their weekly reach.  However, several stations also suffered considerable year on year declines, including the Absolute Radio group.

Total Absolute Radio changed its reporting from half-yearly to quarterly in Q1 2009 and as such direct year on year comparisons are misleading, however, it does indicate a fairly significant decrease.  Although a more recent comparison shows that Total Absolute Radio also recorded a quarterly drop of 6.2%, taking its total below 1.6 million listeners.

Meanwhile, Absolute Radio Xtreme and Absolute Radio Classic Rock – both of which still report half-yearly – were down by more than 34% and 42% year on year respectively.

The Hits and Q also suffered hefty year on year percentage declines in Q3.  Q dropped by 18.2% year on year, despite remaining static period on period, which leaves it with a total reach of 270,000 listeners.  The Hits was down by almost 28% year on year to around 1.1 million listeners.

However, several stations had a more positive quarter, particularly in terms of weekly reach figures.  Classic FM managed to retain a healthy reach of nearly 5.5 million listeners despite slipping 1.8% year on year.

Heart can also boast an impressive weekly reach of more than 7.3 million listeners after a 7.4% year on year rise, despite a slight 1.5% period on period dip.

Galaxy Network, Total Kiss Network and Total Magic have all managed to keep their total reach above the 3.5 million mark as well, after enjoying sizeable year on year increases.

BBC Radio 2’s share of listening slipped by 0.1 percentage point year on year in Q3 2009, but it still remains far ahead the rest with a 16% share.

BBC Radio 4, meanwhile, increased its share of listening by 0.9 percentage points year on year, taking it up to 12.4% in total.

Within the commercial stations, Heart Network (UK) leads the way with a 5.9% share of listening after a slight rise of 0.5 percentage points.

BBC Radio 4 has the highest average hours per listener with 12.3 hours after a slight year on year increase of 0.8%.  However, BBC Radio 2 follows closely behind with 11.8 average hours, despite falling 4.1% year on year.

BBC Radio 1 also saw a year on year decrease in Q3 2009, slipping by 1.1%.  However, the station still maintains a high 9 average hours per listener.

The BBC’s 1Xtra station, meanwhile, enjoyed an impressive percentage increase this quarter, up by almost 40% year on year to 7.1 hours.

In terms of commercial stations, Total LBC (UK), Gold Network (UK) and Total Real Radio lead the way when it comes to average hours per listener.  However, several other commercial stations also upped their game this quarter and recorded impressive year on year upturns.

Absolute Radio Xtreme was up by an incredible 103.6% year on year to 5.7 hours.  Heat and Sunrise Radio also enjoyed significant percentage increases of 48% and 38% respectively.

However, a few stations didn’t fare quite so well.  NME Radio and Chill both lost more than 20% of their average hours, down to 2.2 hours and 4.2 hours respectively.  BBC 6 Music was also down by a significant 29% to 4.9 hours.

MediaTel has PowerPoint presentations available to download, featuring pre-prepared market breakdown graphs for the latest RAJAR data release – click here.