Rajar Q4 2022

Commercial radio continues its success of Q3 2022 by maintaining it’s reach and share,  maintaining 38.1 million adults weekly audience (68% of 15+ adults).

Overall, radio stays at 49.7 million listeners, 89% of the adult population (15+ adults) 1.01 billion weekly listener hours are recorded for Q4 .

The share of listeners of commercial radio has increased from 48.4% in Q1 2022 to 50.2% in Q4 2022.

An average of 20.3 hours of live radio is listened to every week with 41 million adults tuning into radio via a digitally enabled platform each week.

31% listened to radio over a smart phone or tablet at least once a month. (Source Radioworks)

On-line listening is up by 18.7% in one year.

63% of radio audiences listen at home whilst 23% listen on the road (in cars etc) and 14% in work environments.

Summing up National market

Radio 2 has lost listeners, dropping from 14,462,000 to 14,287,000 a loss of 175,000 listeners since Q3. This has perhaps been attributed to the loss of established Radio 2 DJ’s such as Steve Wright in the afternoon and the change of music being played (less 60’s & 70’s)

Capital Network has increased their reach by 194,000 and has 5.1 listening hours weekly on average.

Heart Network has also successfully increased their listeners by 711,000 and increased reach by 1% Global stations reach 26.3 million weekly listeners with heart, Capital and Smooth being the top three commercial brands in the UK.

Summing up local market

Nation Wales had an excellent RAJAR this quarter. They gained 23,000 listeners up 15% to 173,000 weekly listeners. They also had the highest gain in listening hours, now 7.9 per week, up 88% on last quarter. In addition their Radio Carmarthenshire , Radio Pembrokeshire and Dragon radio have remained almost the same reach as Q3 with 18,000, 19,000 and 57,000 respectively.

The Wave was the next station to receive the highest % in reach, up 6% to 99,000 listeners per week

Although Heart South Wales had a small loss of listeners, down 2.4% they still reach a healthy 439,000 listeners per week.  Listening hours were down slightly to 7.6 hours a week.

Heart North Wales has retained its percentage reach but has lost 19.6% of it’s weekly listening hours per person

Capital South Wales hasn’t had a good rajar with a drop in reach from 196,000 last quarter to 175,000 ( down 21%) and listening share drop to 2.9.

Capital North Wales also lost some listeners from last quarters down to 95,000, but only a 5% drop.

Smooth South Wales lost 12.5% of it’s audience, now at 91,000 weekly listeners (104,000 Sep 22)

Bauer media group have accrued 179,000 weekly listeners

Bridge FM has the highest listening hours at 11.3 hours and Radio Pembrokeshire

(Sources, Global, Bauer & Rajar)

It’s Rajar Q3 2022!!

Good news for digital Radio

41 million adults aged 15+ are now tuning in to radio via a digitally enabled platform (DAB, DTV, Online, App, Smart Speaker) each week. 66% of the population claim to own or have access to a DAB radio. 74% of the population tune in to digital radio every week. 66% of weekly listening hours are consumed digitally. Listening via a DAB has 39% share of listening, Online has a 24% share and DTV is 4%.

A General overview

• 88.8% of the adult UK population that’s 49.7 million adults tuned in to radio in Q3
• Radio weekly hours are up at 1.02 billion from 998 million in Q2
• Live radio average listening hours 20.6 hours per week
• Commercial radio reached 5.2m listeners more than BBC radio
• 41 million adults are reached via a digitally enabled platform weekly

National Commercial Stations

• Global has 24.4% share with 246m hours with 25.4m listeners a week.
• Heart is the UK’s biggest commercial radio brand with over 10m listeners. It’s the most listened to commercial station in London with 1.8m weekly reach.
• Capital has the second largest reach after Heart with a weekly reach of 7.4 m, down 3.5% year on year across the UK,
• Smooth Radio remains the UK’s third largest commercial radio station, with 5.6 million weekly listeners, up 123,000 listeners .
• Radio X has increased its listeners by 70,000 now nearly 2m weekly listeners.
• Virgin Radio has lost 7% of its listeners with Chris Evans Breakfast listeners also decreasing from 869,000 listeners to 776,000
• KISS has grown to 2.7m listeners, up 7.2% yearly as has Magic to 2.8m

Local Commercial Stations

• Heart South Wales’s reach is 450,000 up from Q2’s 396,000 with an average of 8 hrs per listener.
• Radio Pembrokeshire’s weekly Reach has dropped from 23,000 to 20,000, Radio Carmarthenshire’s weekly reach is 143,000, both reaching 19% of the population in their areas.
• Capital South Wales has a reach of 196,000 with average listening hours of 3.9 hours, an increase of 8,000 listeners.
• Capital North Wales and Heart North Wales have increased their listeners by 7,000 and 25,000 respectively.
• Nation Radio’s reach has increased by 18,000 to 150,000 a reach of 8%
• Easy Radio Wales (was Swansea Bay radio) has lost listeners and has a reach of 11,000 down from Q2’s reported 14,000

If you would like to advertise on radio please contact our experienced team.

Rajar Q4 2021 Results

This is the second Rajar to utilise the new measuring methodology; conducted via an app running that identified radio stations by matching exposure to a stations audio output rather than face to face data gathering.

We have highlighted some interesting statistics.

National

Global has grown their weekly listeners to 25.8m  and a 24% share.

Though Heart & Smooth Radio are down just 1%, Heart has 8.54m listeners, just ahead of Radio 1 and Smooth has 5.43m. Heart’s Breakfast Show with Jamie Theakston and Amanda Holden has also lost listeners but remains the UK’s biggest commercial radio show and commercial breakfast show with 3.86 million listeners. Capital Breakfast hasn’t faired so well losing 250,000 listeners since the last Rajar with an audience of 2.58m.

Capital Network had 6.35m listeners in Q4 (down 2.7%) but remains No.1 music station with 1.7m weekly listeners listened to in London.

Radio X had a great Rajar with an 8.6% increase in listeners to 2.11m. Breakfast host Chris Moyles had an increase in his audience from 1.08m to 1.17m and Johnny Vaughan’s drive show is has 974,000 listeners. 

Bauer Q4 results show that they have a 20.6 million reach across its stations with three out of five of the top commercial digital stations (No.1 Kisstory, No.3 Absolute 80s, No.4 Planet Rock).Absolute  was down 13.7% on the prior quarter (2.23m).

Kiss network was down 4.4% on the previous quarter to 4.53m. The No.1 commercial digital-only station, Kisstory was up 2% to 2.3m.

The Virgin Radio network, which includes Virgin Radio UK, remains stable with 2.16m listeners during Q4. The Chris Evans Breakfast Show had just over one million listeners (up slightly on Q3), making it the No.1 digital-only commercial breakfast show. 

Local

Global Radio stations across Wales – Capital and Heart faired differently in the last Rajar: Heart North Wales had a great Rajar with reach increasing from 83,000 to 111,000 and Heart South Wales from 395,000 to 403,000. Listener hours have also increased from 7.9 per listener last Rajar to 9.2 this Rajar. Capital South Wales listenership has dropped marginally from 159,000 to 156,000, though average hours per listener has increased to 7 and reach remained at  15%. Capital North Wales and West lost just 1,000 listeners.

Radio Carmarthenshire and Radio Pembrokeshire have lost listeners with Radio Pembrokeshire dropping from 31,000 to 27,000.and Radio Carmarthenshire down by 2,000 listeners.

Nation Radio also lost listeners (2,000 weekly listeners) but average hours of listening per head  remained the same

Whilst Bridge FM more or less retained a level Q4 Rajar compared to Q3 2021,

The Wave unfortunately had a bad quarter dropping listeners by 20,000, though average listening hours remained the same.

In summary most local radio stations in Wales  have seen a drop in listenership for Rajar Dec 2021, Heart has gone from strength to strength over the last couple of Rajar’s so we will be interested to see the results from Q1 in three months time!

We thought we’d highlight a couple of other interesting statistics from Rajar before we sign off –

Digital radio platforms now accounts for 64.4% of all radio listening, according to data for Q4 2021 and listening via online and apps accounts for 16.9% of all listening  and listening via Digital TV accounts for 5% of all listening.

The new data shows that 40 million adults, or 72% of the population aged 15+, now tune into digital radio every week, with strong growth seen across a number of digital stations compared to Q3 2021. 

If you need help in choosing which radio  brand or stations are right for your business and you want to ensure your marketing budget is reaching your target market then give our team a call on 02921 320 200 or email at [email protected].

We’re here to help.