Rajar Q3 2013: National stations and networks

Total Global Radio UK has once again shown its dominance over the national stations and networks with another quarter showing growth in weekly reach.

The latest Rajar results for the third quarter of 2013 reveal the network was up 1.2% on the previous quarter and up 6.3% year on year, reaching more than 20.4 million listeners each week.

BBC Radio 2 held firmly on to its second place position with a little over 14.9 million weekly listeners, yet was down -3.3% on the second quarter, but up a healthy 7.4% on the same period last year.

Bauer Radio Total Portfolio continues to perform well, up 1.8% on Q2 and up 7% on last year. With a weekly reach of more than 14.3 million listeners, the network is up 259,000 on the last period.

After an improved performance for BBC Radio 1 in the second quarter, the station was down -1.8% (securing 10.8 million listeners). The decline was matched by a fall in listeners for its flagship breakfast show, hosted by Nick Grimshaw, which saw a -5.2% drop in listeners this quarter.

One of the biggest success stories in the latest results is BBC’s Five Live Sports Extra, which was up a huge 60.7% on the previous quarter and up over 50% year on year. The station has gained an extra 575,000 listeners each week, potentially attributable to the Ashes coverage.

Sunrise Radio National also saw a substantial increase, up 30.8% QoQ and 38% YoY.

Good news for Kiss UK too, with the Bauer station seeing a 16.5% quarterly and yearly increase – taking its weekly reach to more than 5 million.

However, Total Absolute Radio, despite being up 6% on last year, took a hefty -17.4% knock this quarter, losing 346,000 listeners.

Total Absolute Radio Network also saw a decline in reach, down -10% on the past quarter (although up 15.1% year on year) to secure a little under 3.4 million listeners each week (a loss of 378,000 listeners).

Once again BBC Radio 2 claimed the top spot in terms of share of listening with 16.9%, down marginally on the last quarter.

Total Global Radio (UK) took second place with 16.1% – comfortably ahead of third-place runner BBC Radio 4 (including 4 Extra), which recorded a 12.9%.

All quarterly increases and decreases were marginal, with the greatest loss of share of listening belonging to BBC Radio FIVE LIVE, down -0.4 percentage points quarter on quarter.

BBC Radio 4 (including 4 Extra), Radio 2 and Radio 4 held on to the top three spots – the only stations to record an average listening time over 11 hours.

Global Radio’s commercial networks Total LBC (UK) – which celebrated its 40th anniversary this year – Gold Network (UK) and Total Global Radio (UK) weren’t far behind, with listeners tuning in for 8 or more hours each week.

Few stations recorded any increase of average hours per listener in Q3, although Five Live Sports Extra was up almost 46% to an average listening figure of 5.4 hours.

Total Absolute Radio and Total Absolute Radio Network both fell within the top 15 stations despite listening hours increasing 11.9% and 2.8%, respectively, however Absolute Radio 70s took a -33.3% hit – the largest decline across all the stations.