Rajar Q1 2017: National stations and networks

Reach

The majority of national stations saw weekly reach decline during the first quarter of 2017 – some much more than others – but the radio industry still continues to post healthy listening figures.

Total Global Radio (UK) maintains its lead in the rankings with almost 22.7 million loyal listeners each week – down just 0.3% quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) and up 2.1% year-on-year (YoY).

Global’s Heart Extra performed particularly well, up 20.6% YoY.

Bauer Radio’s Total portfolio remains the second-best listened to with 17 million tuning in each week. While weekly reach was down -3.7% QoQ, it was also up 2% over the year.

With a few exceptions, all BBC stations recorded a decline in weekly reach over the quarter and the year.

Radio 5 Live Sports Extra came off worst – down -28.9% QoQ and -37.4% YoY – while Radio 1 was down -4.8% QoQ and -8.1% YoY.

Digital-only station BBC 6 Music was the only BBC station to record both quarterly and yearly boosts in listeners – up 0.9% and 5.1%, respectively.

Radio 4 (including 4 Extra), also managed to grow its weekly listener base by 5.4% over the year.

LBC Network performed well in the first quarter of the year and managed to grow it’s weekly reach by 5.5%. Over the year, that rises to 15.5% – a total of 1.8 million listeners.

Bauer’s Kisstory also bucked the trend with a 10.6% QoQ increase and 7.6% growth over the year – one of the few stations to record both quarterly and yearly gains.

The same can’t be said for Bauer’s Kerrang (-19.5% QoQ, -24.4% YoY) and Heat (-17.5% QoQ, -32.3% YoY), however, which both posted hefty declines in weekly reach.

It is worth noting that the market looks a little different to previous quarters following the arrival of newly reporting stations and different network compositions.

Share

There was little change to the share of listening for most national stations or networks for the start of the year.

Total Global Radio – the long-standing market leader – saw no change over Q1 and claims almost 20% of the market. The network was up 0.5 percentage points year-on-year.

Meanwhile, BBC Radio 2, the second-place holder, was up 0.8 percentage points to 18.1%, while Bauer Radio (Total) was down just -0.4pp to claim a 14.6% share of the market.

Radio 4 (including 4 Extra) claims a 13.7% share of listening, and was down just -0.1pp.

The next largest shares belong to Heart Brand (UK) with a 6.6% share (Heart Network UK has 6.3%) , and BBC Radio 1 with 5.6%.

Average hours

BBC Radio 2 managed to knock its sister station BBC Radio 4 (including 4 Extra) from the top spot in Q1, boosting its average listening hours by 1.7% to 12.3 hours.

Meanwhile, a slight drop of -1.6% saw Radio 4 decline by 0.2 hours to total an average of 12.2 hours per listener.

It was another good quarter for LBC Network, which recorded a 3.8% boost to almost 11 hours – and over the last year the network has grown its average listening time, per listener, by 10%.

Although its reach is low (see above), United Christian Broadcasting’s prayers were certainly answered in the first quarter as the station recorded a 100% increase in its average listening hours to almost 11 hours.

Meanwhile, digital only-station – and firm Newsline favourite – BBC 6 Music held entirely steady in Q1 and maintains its 10 hours.

Other stations that performed well include Absolute Radio (up 11.1% to 8 hours); Sunrise Radio (up 57.4% to 7.4 hours); Absolute Radio Classic Rock (up 19.1% to 5.6 hours); and talkRADIO (up 29.2% to 3.1 hours).

The hardest hit stations for this period include a total misfire for The Arrow (down -27.4% to 4.5 hours), and a rough ride for Smooth Extra (down -20.3% to 5.9 hours).