‘Exceptionally positive’ outlook as commercial radio surpasses 40m listeners

Rajar Q2 2024

Commercial radio has continued to grow its audience, surpassing 40m weekly listeners for the first time to reach a record 40.5m.

That is 2% higher than in Q1, when commercial radio listening set the previous record for weekly reach at 39.7m listeners.

Notably, commercial radio has also increased its share of listening relative to the BBC, achieving a record share of 55% compared with the BBC’s 42.6%.

Commercial radio has substantially grown its share of listening over the past two years amid an exodus of talent from the BBC. Since Q2 2022, commercial radio’s share of listening has risen six percentage points.

Such talent includes Ken Bruce, who moved to Bauer’s Greatest Hits Radio and has had an immediate and sustained impact on the station’s listenership. In Q2, Bruce’s mid-morning show saw its first dip in weekly audience since he joined — a modest 2% decline. The show’s biggest competitor, Vernon Kay’s time slot on BBC Radio 2, saw its own listenership remaining practically flat (-0.2%).

In Q2, BBC stations saw a relatively flat performance compared with a year earlier. Radio 1 had strong single-digit growth (+5.6%), but Radio 4 (+0.1%) was flat and Radio 2 (-1.0%) dipped.

“It’s great to see these record-breaking figures confirm that commercial radio is reaching over 40m listeners for the first time,” Radiocentre CEO Matt Payton commented. “These excellent results are a reflection of the investment and innovation in our sector.

“This increase in listeners, alongside last week’s industry forecasts predicting improved revenue growth for the sector, mean the outlook for the year ahead is exceptionally positive for advertisers.”

In part due to strong growth among commercial stations, total radio listening across both the BBC and commercial stations is now at an all-time high (50.8m weekly listeners) — up 1.8% from Q1.

UK commercial radio is dominated by stations owned by Bauer and Global, with the latter having the edge in terms of total listening. Global stations collectively grew 9.2% year on year and 3.8% quarter on quarter, now reaching 27.2m listeners (a 26.5% share across total radio listening). Bauer stations grew 6.5% year on year but just 0.3% from Q1 to 22.7m listeners.