89% of the UK listen to Commercial radio every week!
2022 First quarter Rajar has been released. Here are some of the top-line stats we have been looking at…
Overall
- 49.7 UK million adults tuned in to radio each week in the first three months of this year, the highest figure ever recorded! Overall listening reach has increased by 222,000 from 88.9% to 89.3%.
- The total average number of weekly listening hours is 1.012 billion and on average a listener tunes into 20.4 hours of live radio per week.
- 42 million adults are reached by a digital radio platform weekly.
- Listening via DAB has a 41% share of listening
- ‘Online’ has a 22% share (within ‘Online’ Website/Apps 12% and Smart Speakers 10%) and DTV 4%.
- 52% of smart speaker users listen to radio weekly
- 20% of which claim to use it to listen to radio every day
- AM/FM listening hours are less than a third with a share of 32%
- Commercial radio continues to grow with 395,000 extra listeners up to 66.8% of reach and an increase in the average hours of listening to 13.2 hours per week.

Nationally
- Of the larger commercial networks Heart UK’s reach of 8,498,000 is down from 8,542,000 last quarter whilst Capital network has also fallen to 6,068,000 from 6,349,000
- Smooth radio weekly listener hours are down from 6.7 to 6.4 as is Absolute Radio’s down to 6.6 from 6.8 hours
- Kiss Fm total listening hours for the last quarter have dropped to 19,571,000 from 21,907,000
- Magic FM has just about levelled out with their reach of just over 4 million
Locally
- Heart South Wales remain the largest radio station across Wales. It’s reach has remained pretty much the same at 402,000 with listeners tuning in on average for 9.5 hours a week.
- A successful Rajar for Capital South Wales which now reaches 182,000 people compared to last quarter’s 156,000 (up 16%)and Capital North Wales listener hours has seen a slight up-lift to 4.3.
- Nation radio reaches 126,000 listeners down from 153,000 (down 17%)with people listening for an average of 6.2 hours a week.
- More local stations Radio Pembrokeshire and Radio Carmarthenshire retain their listener reach of 27,000 and19,000 respectively.
If you would like to advertise on radio please contact our experienced team.