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RAJAR round up

By | Published on Thursday 24 October 2013

RAJAR

Yep, it’s RAJAR time people, that quarterly moment when we look at the official listening figures for British radio. And here’s five things to know about them…

1. The BBC’s big breakfast shows both saw decline this last quarter, compared to the previous one. Grimmy at Radio 1 saw his listening figures slide by 300,000, meaning his average audience is now a million plus down on that enjoyed by his predecessor Chris Moyles, because an arrogant mouthy tosser will always please more people than an amiable music fan. Over on Radio 2, Chris Evans may still front the UK’s biggest breakfast show, but his listening figures are down 405,000 quarter-on-quarter, though are still up considerably year-on-year.

2. Elsewhere at the Beeb, the good summer hit radio listening pretty much across the board. Radio 1’s average weekly audience was 10.8 million, 1.8% down quarter-on-quarter; Radio 2 saw its overall listening figures slip 3.3% on the previous quarter to 14.9 million; 6 Music scored an average weekly audience of 1.73 million, 3.4% down on the previous quarter, but 6.9% up year on year; and the Asian Network saw its audience slip on both the previous quarter and year to 555,000.

3. In the race to be the biggest in London, one time leader Heart slipped into fourth place, behind sister station Capital, which retained its place atop the London listening chart, followed by Bauer stations Kiss and, newly in third place, Magic.

4. Absolute Radio, now part of the Bauer Radio empire of course, saw it’s London audience slip 30.7% quarter-on-quarter and 16.9% year-on-year, to 691,000. UK-wide Absolute’s audience was also down quarter-on-quarter, but up year-on-year, to 1.6 million. On digital, the Absolute 80s station is closing the gap with its sister flagship station, now boasting an audience of 1.2 million.

5. Despite many stations seeing audiences slip quarter-on-quarter, the year-on-year figures were generally pretty good; with RAJAR reckoning that a million more people were listening to radio this summer, compared with the July to September quarter in 2012. The portion of listening done via digital platforms (DAB, online and via TV) was also up year-on-year, though down ever so slightly quarter-on-quarter. The digital-analogue split is still around 50/50, slightly in digital’s favour.



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