Rajar Q3 2018: digital

According to the Rajar results for Q3 2018, the strength of digital radio has continued to grow – now encompassing 52.4% of all radio listening.

That represents an increase of 3.6 percentage points quarter-on-quarter and a 5% growth year-on-year.

63% of the adult population aged 15+ are tuning in to digital radio devices every week – including DAB radios, digital TV (DTV), online and apps – which amounted last quarter to a weekly average of 538 million digital hours.

Of those hours, 73% of listening was on DAB radios, 9% on DTV and 18% online or via apps.

The most popular digital-only station remains BBC 6 Music with a weekly reach of 2.52 million listeners, followed by KISSTORY, the most popular commercial digital-only station, with a new record reach of 2.16 million listeners, a growth of 18.4% year-on-year.

Other record-breaking station performances include BBC Radio 5 live sports extra, which grew by 1.8% YoY to reach 1.67 million listeners; Smooth Extra, which grew by 30% to reach 1.16 million listeners; and Absolute Radio 90s, which grew by 21% to reach 913,000 listeners.

Radio X, which has 79% of its listening via digital platforms, grew by 13% to reach a new record of 1.72 million listeners.

“Radio’s digital transition continues to gain momentum with record digital share, over one million more digital listeners and 27.5 million more digital hours than last year,” said Ford Ennals, CEO of Digital Radio UK.

“The way people listen to radio has fundamentally changed with the main drivers of digital growth being online in the home and DAB digital radio in cars. DAB remains the most popular digital platform overall but the strong take up of online listening by younger age groups shows just how important listening on apps and smart speakers will be in the future.”