RAJAR Q3 2009: BBC & Commercial

The latest RAJAR figures show that All BBC enjoyed a year on year rise in weekly reach for the three months to the end of September, while All Commercial remained relatively static over the same period.

It was a different story in terms of share of listening, with All Commercial down slightly year on year while All BBC was static.

All BBC and All Commercial both saw slight declines in their average hours per listener figures.

Share of Listening

All Commercial’s share of listening dropped by 0.7 percentage points year on year in the third quarter of 2009 to 42.4%, although it performed slightly better period on period, with a drop of 0.3 percentage points.

Within this, All National Commercial was in pretty much the same position as last year, with a dip of just 0.1 percentage point putting its share of listening at 10.9%

All Local Commercial (National TSA) was down from 32.0% in Q3 2008 to 31.6% in Q3 2009, a fall of 0.4 percentage points.

All BBC recorded a 0.1 percentage point increase year on year, with All BBC Network Radio outperforming BBC/Local Regional. There was a 1.1 percentage point fall for BBC/Local Regional stations, taking the total share to 8.2%, while All BBC Network Radio’s share was buoyed by a 1.3 percentage point increase.

Weekly Reach

Looking at weekly reach, All Commercial now has 31.2 million listeners, a slight increase on Q3 2008.

However, there was a 3% year on year fall for All National Commercial, bringing its reach down to 13.5 million.

There was better news for All Local Commercial (National TSA), down just 0.2% year on year to 25 million listeners.

Although BBC Local/Regional suffered an 8.2% year on year fall in reach to 8.5 million listeners, All BBC did reasonably well, with a 1.8% year on year increase taking its listener base to 33.5 million. It was down on Q2 2009, however, by 1.5%.

Boosting the overall figure was All BBC Network Radio, up 3.2% on the same period last year to 30.2 million listeners.

Average Hours Per Listener

Both the BBC and Commercial radio saw their overall average hours per listener figures decline in the third quarter. All Commercial’s average hours figure was down 1.4% on last year, at 13.7 hours, while All BBC’s dipped 1.2% to 16.5 hours overall.

Listeners are sticking with All National Commercial for longer though, with a 2.5% year on year rise taking the total to just over eight hours.

At 12.7 hours on average, listeners are staying with All Local Commercial (National TSA) for about the same amount of time as they did a year ago.

Turning back to the BBC, All BBC Network Radio was static year on year, although it was up slightly period on period by 1.3% to 15.6 hours.

There was a significant dropping off in average hours for BBC Local/Regional, with the total falling 4% year on year to under 10 hours.

MediaTel has PowerPoint presentations available to download, featuring pre-prepared market breakdown graphs for the latest RAJAR data release – click here.