National Stations Lose Audience – Talk Radio Disappointment

The latest Rajar results, for Q1 1995, show that all of the national commercial stations have lost listeners since Q4 1994. The audience for all national commercial stations for this quarter was down 494,000 on Q4 1994, down 1% point from 25% to 24%. All commercial listening was down to 59% weekly reach from 60% last quarter. Share of listening was also down, from 11% last quarter to 9.9% this quarter.

Classic FM lost the most audience, down 221,000 or 4.9% compared to last quarter to 4,467,000. Virgin’s audience was down by 168,000 or 4.3% to 3,825,000, and Atlantic 252 lost 3.4% compared to the last quarter, or 152,000 listeners, to 4,419. In terms of share of listening, Classic FM achieved 3.1%, down from 3.2% last quarter; Virgin had a share of listening of 3.5%, down from 3.9% last quarter, and Atlantic had a share of listening of 3.3%; this is its lowest share since Q1 1994.

Talk Radio, the newest commercial station reported disappointing figures, with its weekly reach audience at 1,553,000 (3%) well below the promised 3 million. Talk Radio UK is included in ‘other listening’ as the launch date, 14 February is half way through the current Rajar reporting period. The actual reported figures for Talk Radio are based on the first five full weeks of broadcasting. Share of listening for Talk Radio was 0.9%, with the average hours per listener being 5.1.