Rajar Q3 2016: Round-up

National stations and networks

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%).

Read the full breakdown here.

Digital

59% of the population now listen to digital radio each week, with 32 million of those tuning in via a digitally enabled receiver (DAB, DTV, online).

The share of all radio listening via a digital platform stood at 45.5% in Q3 – comprised of DAB (32.3%), DTV (5.2%) and listening online or via an app (8%).

Read the full breakdown here.

Breakfast

National

The summer holiday season witnessed its usual declines in radio listening, with nearly all national breakfast shows recording quarter-on-quarter dips.

BBC Radio 2, presented by long-running favourite Chris Evans, was down -4.4%, and down -3.9% year-on-year. Still, the station is the stand-out winner with more than 9 million listeners tuning in every morning.

In second position, BBC Radio 4 was down -3.4% to 7.1 million listeners – surprising, given there was so much to discuss following the UK’s decision to leave the EU. However, despite the summer decline, the station was up 5.1% year-on-year.

With 5.2 million fans remaining, Nick Grimshaw’s BBC Radio 1 slot was also down in Q3. A -3.4% dip was in-line with other stations, so perhaps not much to worry about – but the station was down -9.1% year-on-year, cementing a general and well-documented decline.

The three worst performing stations in the breakfast market were TalkSPORT (down -18.1%), Kiss (-14.1%) and BBC Radio 3 (down -22.9%).

The drop in listeners for talkSPORT is perhaps explained by the addition of new stations in its network – including talkSPORT2, talkRADIO and the relaunched Virgin.

Perhaps helping to sooth stressed Remainers, the best performing breakfast show during the summer months was Classic FM – up 3.6% to 1.76 million.

London

Mimicking the nationals, the majority of London breakfast stations waved goodbye to a chunk of their listeners over the summer period. Absolute Radio, however, managed to increase its weekly reach by almost a third over the year.

As well as recording the biggest yearly increase across all London breakfast slots (30.3%), Absolute Radio was also one of the few stations to boost its weekly reach over the period, up 5.4% to 451,000.

A -15.8% decline in weekly reach saw Global-owned LBC lost its place as the third most-popular London breakfast slot, replaced by Bauer’s Magic which was up 6.2%. LBC News was also down over the quarter (-11%), but up an impressive 25.8% year on year.

Smooth Radio (-18.4%), BBC Radio London (-17.7%) and Radio X London (-16.5%) also took big hits over the period – and the year (-19.9%, -21%, -15.7%, respectively).

Despite a -8.1% period decline, Capital London remains the most popular London breakfast slot with 1.04 million listeners tuning in each week. The station was also up 6.2% year on year.

Bauer’s Kiss kept its second position also; however weekly reach was down both over the period (-7.4%) and year (-9.8%).

Similarly, Heart maintained its spot as the third most-most popular breakfast station in London – as well as recording an impressive 25.3% increase in weekly reach over the year.

However, no station was a match for Premier Christian Radio, which pulled in an extra 71.4% of listeners compared with the previous quarter and almost doubled its audience year on year. 72,000 people now tune in each week.