The Latest RAJAR Listening Figures with Mike Young

It’s a real vote of confidence in the medium even at a time of enormous growth in podcast consumption. I should add that podcast listening is at an all-time high too with 12.3 million people in the UK now listening to podcasts each week.

Interestingly commercial radio has also seen a record listening share of 55%– that’s compared to the BBC’s 42.6%. Of course, there are a great many more national commercial stations to tune into these days.

Smart speaker listening is also running hot—it now accounts for 17% of total listening, that’s an 18% increase year-on-year. It’s a real indicator that technology is moving fast and audiences are embracing that tech to listen in new ways. I never mind how people listen—as long as they listen!

As for the performance of individual stations, here’s where some of the biggest players are sitting…

• LBC has added 227,000 listeners in the past year, now reaching more than 3.3 million people each week. LBC News has a weekly audience of 981,000.
• GB News Radio has grown by a remarkable 63 per cent in the past 12 months to reach 518,000 people per week. Times Radio sits steady at 478,000 people tuning in.
• The Heart network has close to 10m listeners and Heart Breakfast is the biggest commercial radio breakfast show in the UK with 4.2 million weekly listeners.
• Classic FM has increased its audience in the last quarter to 4.5 million weekly listeners. talkSPORT is up 9% to 3.7m listeners.
• BBC Radio 1 has added a million listeners to just break though the 8million mark.
• BBC Radio 2 has 13.3m listeners with 6.4m tuning in for The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show. Vernon Kay has the biggest UK radio show with 6.7m listeners.
• BBC Radio 4 has 9m listeners with 5.6m tuning in for The Today programme. BBC Radio 5 Live has 5.4m listeners.
• Ken Bruce now reaches a record 4m listeners on Greatest Hits Radio, up 1m year-on-year. Greatest Hits now has just over 7.5m listeners to the station as a whole.

Mike Young | Head of News