Rajar Q3 2015: National stations and networks

Reach

With a weekly reach of 22 million listeners following a 4.3% quarterly increase, Total Global Radio remains the best performing national network, followed by the total Bauer portfolio (up 1.1% QoQ) and BBC Radio 2 (up 1.6% QoQ).

The majority of stations were up on the previous quarter, with some of the more significant boosts in weekly listenership belonging to BBC 1Xtra (19.9% QoQ), Global’s Capital XTRA and XFM Network (up 15.7% and 17.6%, respectively), and, fulfilling all those Brit Pop needs, Bauer’s Absolute Radio 90s (up 16.7%).

BBC stations performed well across the board over the quarter, with BBC 6 Music recording its highest reach figure to date, up 6.5% to a little under 2.2 million.

Elsewhere, BBC Radio 4 Extra was up 12.6%, BBC Three up 9.3% and 5 Live Sports Extra up 6.3%. The more popular BBC stations all recorded increases, but to a lesser extent.

Of the few declines recorded, Bauer’s Kisstory came off worst, down -10.4% QoQ, but simultaneously saw a huge 34% increase over the year.

Jazz FM was the only other station to see a notable decline in weekly reach over the quarter, down -9.1%. All other decreases were marginal.

Over the year, the big wins belonged to Absolute Radio 70s (up 70.7%), BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra (up 42%), Capital XTRA (up 36%), BBC Radio 4 Extra (up 35.1%) and Kisstory (up 34.3%).

Share

Total Global Radio (UK) continued to dominate the total share of listening for national stations in the third quarter of 2015 and managed a quarter-on-quarter uplift of 1.1 percentage points.

The network now holds an 18.8% share of the total market – with growth of 0.7 percentage points, year on year.

There was no change over the period for BBC Radio 2 which continues to hold a healthy 17.6% share.

Bauer Radio (Total) maintained its third place position in the market with a 14.1% share – an increase of only 0.2 percentage points over quarter two.

BBC Radio 4 (including 4 Extra) was up 0.1 percentage points over the quarter to secure a 12.9% share, while Heart Network (UK) and BBC Radio 1 were both up by just 0.1 percentage point.

All other quarterly increases and decreases were marginal.

Average hours

Despite declines, BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 4 (including 4 Extra) continue to dominate the average hours listened rankings, recording 11.8 and 11.3 hours, respectively.

When BBC Radio 4 includes its 4 Extra figures, it narrowly beats Radio 2 by 0.1 hours – a first for the station.

Other solid performances were recorded by Bauer’s Kerrang!, up 20%, quarter on quarter to 4.8 hours and Bauer’s The Hits, up 20.6% to 4.1 hours, while BBC World Service, despite a year-on-year drop of more than -10%, was up 10.9% in Q3 to 5.1 hours per listener.

Global Radio’s Gold Network UK witnessed a 12.7% increase in Q3 and a strong 15.6% year on year increase. The station grabs the attention of listeners for an average of 8.9 hours.

It wasn’t such good news for Planet Rock, another Bauer favourite, which recorded a decline of -8.4% after a very strong second quarter.

Likewise, Absolute Radio was down almost -9%, yet still records a healthy 7.2 hours per listener.