Commercial Radio Inches Ahead Of BBC In Latest Listening Figures

The commercial radio sector has clinched a slightly higher total share of listening than BBC Radio, according to the latest audience figures released by RAJAR this afternoon. All Commercial’s share of listening came in at 49.2% and the BBC took a share of 49.0%. The remaining 1.8% of listening is accounted for by radio stations not included on the RAJAR survey, such as pirate stations.

The commercial sector has shown a slight increase in listenership over the previous RAJAR period where the commercial stations took a 47.5% share of listening against the BBC’s 50.3%.

All Radio has a weekly reach of 90%, or 43 million listeners. This is slightly higher than in the March 1999 RAJAR period, where total radio listening had a weekly reach of 89% or 42.6 million listeners. Most of this increase in reach goes to the commercial sector, which is up slightly from 31.5 million to 31.8 million this period. This is higher than the BBC which has a weekly reach of 30.4 million.

The fact that BBC Radio has a greater share but lower reach, means that there are slightly fewer people tuning in to the BBC than commercial radio, but they are listening, on average, for longer. This is illustrated in the average hours per listener figures. BBC Radio’s average hours per listener is 16.0, where as commercial radio’s is 15.4.

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As the RAJAR survey is now operating under a new methodology (see RAJAR – The New Methodology Explained), year on year comparisons are prohibited. However, data from the period to March 1999 can be compared with this release which covers the period to June 1999, as in the tables above. For an explanation of the new RAJAR methodology and how and when the stations report, click RAJAR – The New Methodology Explained.