Rajar Q2 2018: Digital

Digital radio remains in rude health and now represents half of all radio listening with a narrow 50.2% share, according to the latest Rajar results for the second quarter of 2018.

It represents a small decline of -0.7pp on Q1, and is up 1% year-on-year.

More than 3 in 5 adults (classed as aged 15+) currently listen to radio via a digital platform, and in total 34 million people now tune in to radio via a digitally enabled receiver – DAB, digital TV or online – each week.

In an average week, digital listening accounts for 510 million hours; DAB has a 72% share of digital listening hours, digital TV 9% and online 19%.

Most of the UK now has access to over fifty DAB stations and some major cities over seventy.

The most popular digital-only station remains BBC 6 Music, which recorded its second highest weekly reach of 2.44 million listeners, while there was strong growth for a wide-range of commercial digital stations with KISSTORY – the most popular digital-only commercial station – growing by 16.7% to exceed 2 million listeners (2.02 million) for the first time.

Further commercial digital-only stations growing strongly year on year include Heart 80s which increased by 37.4% to reach 1.2 million listeners; Smooth Extra which grew by 42.1% to reach 1.1 million listeners; Absolute Radio 90s which grew by 26.3% to reach 822,000.

“The majority of radio listening continues to be on a digital platform with some record performances from leading digital-only stations such as KISSTORY, which now has over 2 million listeners,” said Ford Ennals, CEO of Digital Radio UK.

“It’s perhaps significant that during a quarter which has seen record-breaking warm weather that digital listening out of home and in car is strongly up (+ 14%), while digital listening in home on all platforms has declined 4.6%, led by a decline in listening on digital TV.”