Rajar Q2 2017: National stations and networks

Reach

There were some decent increases in weekly reach for a number of national stations in the second quarter of 2017.

With a 3% quarter-on-quarter boost, Total Global Radio UK kept the top spot with more than 23.3 million listeners tuning in each week – with top performers including LBC Network (UK) (up 14.6% QoQ), Smooth Extra (up 17.4% QoQ) and The Arrow (up 66%).

Heart Extra, however, was down -19% compared with Q1.

Meanwhile, Bauer Radio Total – which follows Global’s top spot with a weekly reach of 17.2 million – was up 1.8% QoQ, although down -3% YoY.

Bauer’s best performing stations this quarter include Kiss (up 15.5%), Kisstory (up 11.8%) and Absolute 80s (up 11.3%).

Not such good news for Bauer’s Kerrang, however, which was down -11.6% QoQ and -28.3% YoY – the biggest yearly decline across all stations.

Except for a handful of small quarterly declines (BBC Radio 2 -0.9%, BBC 6 Music -4.9%), BBC stations performed well – with Radio 4 up 3.5%, Radio 1 up 5.3%, BBC Radio 3 up 9.4%, BBC World Service up 19.4% and BBC Radio 5 live sports extra up by more than 50%.

Share

There was little change to the share of listening for most national stations or networks for Q2.

Total Global Radio – the long-standing market leader – claims 20.6% of the market after a boost of 1 percentage point compared with Q1. The network was up 1.3pp year-on-year.

Meanwhile, BBC Radio 2, the second-place holder, was down -1.3 percentage points to 16.8%, while Bauer Radio (Total) was down just -0.4pp to claim a 14.2% share of the market.

Radio 4 (including 4 Extra) claims a 13.5% share of listening, and was down just -0.4pp.

The next largest shares belong to Heart Brand (UK) with a 6.2% share (Heart Network UK has 6.3%), and BBC Radio 1 with 6.2% – a rise of 0.6pp.

Average hours

BBC Radio 4 and its sister station BBC Radio 2 are currently sharing the top spot for average listening hours.

Both stations kept people engaged for an average of 11.7 hours in the second quarter. However, despite reigning over other stations, both recorded declines in Q2 – but most likely due to the sunnier weather driving people outdoors.

Meanwhile, LBC Network, which recorded a -2.8% decline to 10.6 hours in the second quarter, was up a healthy 5% year-on-year.

It was also a good quarter for Total Global Radio (UK), which boosted its average listening time by 2.2% to 9.1 hours in Q2, and was up 3.4% year-on-year.

Meanwhile, digital only-station – and still Newsline’s absolute favourite – BBC 6 Music had a bad quarter, despite its extensive Glastonbury coverage.

The station was down -13% to 8.7 hours, and down -10.3% YoY. Perhaps no-one could handle Craig ‘I only play funk’ Charles filling in for Shaun Keaveny for those painful two weeks.

Other stations that performed well in Q2 include Planet Rock, up 13.2%; Classic FM, up 7.7%; and The Arrow – which finally hit the bulls eye and was up 31%.

The hardest hit stations for this period include Sunrise Radio National, down -23%; UCB 1, which was down almost 53%; and Absolute 80s, down 18.3%.