BBC Share Of Radio To Fall Below 50%

The BBC’s share of radio listening will probably fall below 50% this year for the first time, Liz Forgan, managing director of BBC Radio admitted yesterday. At the Radio Academy Festival in Birmingham yesterday, Liz Forgan, in her first major speech since taking over the job 18 months ago said that the BBC losses were “the result of the competitive market, not a failure of BBC programme makers. To accept that is not defeatism but realism.”

A major factor in the BBC’s loss of audience has been the changes at Radio 1, where listeners have fallen from 17 million to 13 million. Forgan defended the unpopular R1 changes, by saying that although they were not ideal, they were necessary because of declining audiences for the past 10 years. The latest RAJAR data, Q1 1994, puts BBC total share of listening at 52.3%, with commercial taking 45.1%. Other small stations accounted for 2.6%.