Rajar Q3 2016: National stations and networks

Reach

A 1.5% increase in weekly reach over the quarter cemented Global Radio’s position as the best performing network in terms of weekly reach with 23 million listeners, followed by Bauer Radio with a little under 17.9 million.

Within Global’s portfolio, new stations Chill (+75.6%) and The Arrow (+35.7%), alongside Smooth Extra (+8.4%) recorded the biggest increases in weekly reach over the period, while Classic FM and Smooth Radio Network, both down -4.2%, came off worst.

Bauer’s best performing stations included Absolute Radio (+21%) and Mellow Magic (+11.6%), while Kiss (-10%) and Absolute 80s (-7.8%) recorded the biggest declines within the network.

BBC stations posted a mixed bag of results with Radio 3 (-10.2%) and Radio 5 Live (-6.1%) taking the biggest hits over the period; however Radio 1 was up 4.4%, 6 Music up 3.4% and Radio 5 Live Sports Extra up a massive 22.2% – no doubt benefiting from 2016’s Olympic Games.

Virgin Radio, which was revived earlier this year, recorded one of the bigger declines in weekly reach of all recorded stations, down -15.6% period on period, while TalkSPORT was down -13.1% and Sunrise Radio National down -16%.

Over the year, Global and Bauer stations performed particularly well, with stand-out figures belonging to Bauer-owned Absolute (+24.4%) and Kisstory (+23.3%), and Global’s LBC Network (+21.6%), Radio X Network (+20.6%) and Capital XTRA (20.4%).

The biggest yearly declines came from Bauer’s The Hits and Planet Rock, down -14.2% and -12.8%, respectively, followed by BBC 1Xtra, down -10.7%.

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

As is usual, there was little change to the share of listening for most national stations or networks in the third quarter.

However, with a 0.7 percentage point increase, the market leader – Total Global Radio – has nabbed a whopping 20% of the market.

The network was up 1.2pp year on year – the highest increase of any station or network.

Meanwhile, BBC Radio 2, the second-place holder, was down -0.5pp to 16.7% – its lowest share in a year.

In third place, Bauer Radio (total) was up 0.3pp to claim a 15.1% share of the market, while Heart Network was up 0.2pp to 6.2%.

All other increases and decreases were marginal.

Average hours

BBC Radio 4 (including 4 Extra) has reclaimed the top spot from sister station BBC Radio 2, despite a -0.9% decline in average listening hours. The station has an impressive average listening time, per listener, of 11.5 hours each week.

Very closely behind, BBC Radio 2 records 11.4 hours, down -2.6% this quarter, and down -3.4% year on year.

Elsewhere, there were very impressive gains for LBC Network over the last year – a 9.7% increase means the network now has an average weekly listening time of 10.2 hours.

Radio X Network (UK) also performed well and has gone from 4.6 hours in September 2015 to 7.2 hours in Q3 2016. The network was up 7.5% in the last quarter and up 56.5% over the year.

New station The Arrow, part of Global Radio, is off to a flying start. With 5.6 hours per listener in Q2, the station is already up to 9.3 – a 66.1% increase.

After a long period of growth, digital-only station BBC 6 Music was down -4.1% in Q3 to 9.3 hours, and down -1.1% year on year.

It was also bad news for Bauer’s Planet Rock which slid -7.4% in Q3 to 7.5 hours of leather-clad listening time.