Q3 RAJAR Summary

While there was an overall year on year drop of 1.7% in the number of people listening to radio, commercial radio suffered less than the BBC in Quarter 3. The BBC’s total weekly reach slipped 4.4% to 26.3 million while all commercial fell 0.6% to 27.6 million.

The national commercial stations did not fare very well, with only Talk Radio managing a year on year increase in listeners of 1.1% to 2.1 million. Classic FM saw its year on year listeners drop by 3.7% and Virgin Radio AM (UK) fell by 8.7%. Atlantic 252 had the biggest national commercial drop with a fall of 15.2% to 3.2 million.

Virtually all local commercial stations saw an audience reach loss compared to the third quarter of last year. Most significantly are audience reach losses for 963 Liberty, which saw a 43.8% drop, and Capital 95.8 FM which suffered a significant 16.6% loss of audience compared to last year’s figures.

Only five local commercial stations managed to increase their weekly reach, notably ethnic communities’ Spectrum Radio on 558 AM which saw a 13% increase, and Jazz FM 100.4 which gained 9.1% in audience reach.