Commercial Radio Makes Gains In Latest RAJAR Report

Commercial radio’s share of listening has increased, closing slightly the gap between commercial and public service radio listening, according to the latest RAJAR figures released this morning.

The data, which covers the reporting period to March 2000, shows All Commercial radio’s share of listening increasing by 0.4% points to 47.1%, when compared to the previous period, ending December 1999. At the same time All BBC’s share slipped back 0.3% points to 51%. The remaining 1.9% of listening is accounted for by stations not included in the RAJAR survey.

Both Local and National Commercial station’s share of listening rose in this survey by 0.2% points each, and BBC Local and Local/Regional Radio also saw rises of 0.2% points and 0.4% points respectively. However, BBC Network Radio fell by 0.6% points.

Period on period, weekly reach showed most categories making gains. All Commercial has now slightly overtaken All BBC however – commercial radio as a whole now reaches 420,000 more listeners than public service radio. All National Commercial showed the largest increase, climbing 5.8% to almost 12 million listeners, and Local Commercial rose by 3.4%. All Radio now reaches 43 million people – an increase of 1.5% on the previous period.

The average hours per listener show that BBC Radio gets over an hour longer listener time each week, at 16.9 hours, than does All Commercial Radio, at 15.4 hours. All National and all Commercial radio saw no change in its average weekly hours, while BBC Local and BBC Local/Regional saw increases of 3.7% and 4.8% respectively.

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