RAJAR Q4 2012: Round-up

Today RAJAR (Radio Joint Audience Research Ltd) announced 90% of the UK adult population tuned in to their selected radio stations in the fourth Quarter of 2012. This is up by approximately 340,000 adults on the same quarter of the previous year.

The total number of hours listened to radio is 1.04 billion, up marginally year-on-year.

Here is our round-up of the results for the Digital, London, National and Breakfast markets.

Digital

Listening to radio via a digital platform, in terms of weekly reach, has increased by 9% year-on-year, with 25.2 million people now tuning in via a digitally enabled receiver (DAB, DTV, Online) each week – up from 23.1 million in Q4, 2011.

DAB radio is still the most popular device when it comes to listening to digital radio; however, listening via online has recorded an increase of 43.4% year-on-year while digital television (DTV) has increased by 15.7%.

Meanwhile, access to a DAB receiver is up 6% on Q4 2011 and currently 42% of the population, or 22.1 million adults (aged 15+), claim to live in a household with a DAB set.

For further details on Digital, click here.

London

Absolute Radio London saw good growth after a wobble in the third quarter, up 23.8% year-on-year and up 15.9% on the previous period to deliver to 686,000 listeners across the capital.

Meanwhile, nine of the seventeen radio stations in the RAJAR analysis of London recorded a decline in weekly reach year-on-year, with another nine recording declines compared to the previous quarter.

Magic 105.4 remained in the lead after rising to the top spot in the third quarter. Although its weekly quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year reach were both down -6.6% and -6.3%, respectively, it remained in pole position with just over 2 million listeners.

Capital London remained in second position for the second quarter running with a weekly reach of almost 2 million, seeing a decline by 0.8% quarter-on-quarter and -12% year-on-year.

Kiss 100 FM recorded a decline in reach compared to last year and the previous quarter (-3.1% and -7%, respectively). The station broadcasts to just over 1.8 million listeners.

Heart London achieved a reach of 1.7 million – down -7% on the previous quarter and -11.6% on last year.

Sunrise Radio (Greater London), meanwhile, saw the biggest decline of -31.6% year-on-year (down -19.5% on the last quarter) to broadcast to 227,000 listeners.

National

BBC Radio 2 and BBC 6 Music have both seen their highest audience reach figures ever.

BBC Radio 2 has seen an 8.7% increase, quarter-on-quarter, and a 5.9% increase year-on-year to see it end 2012 with 15.1 million weekly listeners.

BBC 6 Music, meanwhile, saw it increase its year-on-year growth by 31% (16% quarter-on-quarter) to hit an all-time high of 1.89 million weekly listeners.

Total Global Radio (UK) continues to head up the nationals and networks. The network has a weekly reach of 19.25 million listeners, which is down very slightly -0.8% compared to last year and -0.3% compared to the previous period.

Total Absolute Radio also saw good gains, increasing its year-on-year reach by 10.8%.

For further deatil on the National Stations click here.

Breakfast

National Breakfast

Radio listeners in the UK continue to favour Chris Evans’ BBC Radio 2 breakfast show with a weekly reach of 9.5 million – almost a million more listeners than the previous quarter (+11.4%) with a year-on-year increase of 7.5%.

Evans remains well ahead of BBC’s Radio 1 and Radio 4. Radio 1 – which saw long-term host Chris Moyles leave in Q3 to be replaced by Nick Grimshaw – was down only 0.6% quarter-on-quarter to settle at 6.69 million listeners, but was down -7.6% year-on-year.

Meanwhile, Radio 4’s Today programme reached just over 7 million listeners (up 1.6% on quarter 3) but down -1.3% year-on-year. Q3 was the first time it had moved above Radio 1 for weekly reach and Q4 sees it remain there.

Without an Olympic boost, BBC Radio FIVE LIVE was down -10.4% on the previous quarter, but remains in fourth position with 2.4 million listeners. Year-on-year reach was down only 1.3%.

The best performer, in terms of year-on-year growth, was Total Absolute Radio Network with Christian O’Connell’s morning slot seeing a 19.8% increase on Q3 and +17.3% year-on-year.

BBC’s Radio 3 breakfast show had the lowest reach and was down -8.9% quarter-on-quarter and -13.8% year-on-year.

London Breakfast

In London, Capital remained the top breakfast show with a weekly reach of nearly 1 million, but this was -6.9% quarter-on-quarter and -17.7% year-on-year.

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