RAJAR Q1 2013: National stations and networks

Reach

Total Global Radio and BBC Radio 2 remain at the top of the national stations and networks when it comes to weekly audience reach, according to the latest RAJAR findings for the first quarter of 2013 – with BBC Radio 2 as the top national station, seeing a 4.9% year on year (YoY) increase and reaching over 15 million listeners.

BBC Radio 3, Radio 4 and 6 Music were all up YoY – 13.7%, 4.4% and 24.7%, respectively – while BBC Radio 1 saw a significant -7.9% YoY drop (-7.5% across the quarter), though it still sat comfortably in the top ten stations with a total weekly reach of approximately 10.2 million.

Absolute Radio 00s saw a massive 102.4% increase YoY, now at 170,000 listeners, compared with 84,000 at the end of Q1 2012.

Global Radio’s popular networks Heart Network and Capital Network were both down YoY, -3.4% and -1.6%, respectively, however Capital Network saw a slight QoQ increase in reach of 1.4%, taking its weekly reach to just under seven million.

The largest YoY decline was recorded by Bauer Radio’s The Hits with -18.9%, followed by Total Real Radio UK, down -11.9%.

Average Hours

Despite BBC Radio 2’s success in weekly audience reach, the station was down -2.4% in the average hours per listener results to 12 hours in Q1 2013 – though it still managed to secure the third top spot in the results.

BBC Radio 4 (including 4 Extra) maintained the top spot for average hours per listener at 12.8 hours – no change since the same time last year, though up 0.8% QoQ.

The biggest YoY percentage increase belonged to the disco-lovers of the nation, with Absolute Radio 70s up 102.9% and securing an average of 6.9 hours per listener.

Share

There was little QoQ and YoY change in terms of share of listening, with the biggest increase belonging to BBC Radio 4, up a 1 percentage point YoY.

BBC Radio 2 secured the top spot once again, with a 17.7% share of the nation tuning into the station – up a 0.9 percentage points YoY.

The biggest YoY loss belonged to Radio One, down -1.5 percentage points YoY, though still managing to secure a respectable 6.7% share of listeners.

Bauer has remained consistent over both the quarter and the year, with Bauer Radio Total Portfolio securing an 11.1% share at the end of Q1 2013 (up 0.7 percentage points YoY) and Bauer Place Portfolio Total securing a 6.9% share (up 0.3 percentage points YoY).

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

Average Hours

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