Rajar Q1 1997 – Summary

Quarter 1 1997 RAJAR figures, released this afternoon, shows that commercial radio has once again moved ahead of the BBC after increasing its share of listening to 49.4%; 1% point ahead of the BBC.

National commercial stations did not perform well, with all showing a year on year drop in weekly reach. Talk Radio and Virgin showed the largest decreases, with drops of 15.3% and 14.5% respectively.

Capital FM is still the capital’s favourite radio station. Capital Radio 95.8 FM had a weekly of reach of just under 3.5 million and recorded 32,631,000 hours of listening per week during this period. Nevertheless, both Capital stations saw an overall drop in weekly reach of 11.51% year-on-year.

Heart’s London station continues to increase its weekly reach, rising over 30% year-on-year while London News Direct is still struggling, losing 10.55% of its weekly reach year-on-year.

Attention was also focused on how Radio 1 had performed since Chris Evans left its breakfast show in January and the figures revealed that the station lost 8.6% of its reach, which fell from 11.245 million last year to 10.278 million this year. The other BBC stations put in quite strong performances, with Radios 2, 3, and 5 Live all increasing reach and share of listening.