Ten per cent of the UK’s population listen to a GMG station every week, thanks to the recent expansion of the Guardian-owned radio group. The shining light — again — is Real Radio Scotland, whose weekly audience grew to 766,000 adults a week, listening on average for 12.4 hours each.
To put it into context, that’s just under three times the total hours that Scot FM had when it was bought by GMG in late 2001. Real Wales has also performed well, with 342,000 listeners and over 4 million listener hours a week.
100.4 Smooth Radio once again takes the title as most listened to station in the northwest, whilst Century FM lose 1.3 million hours and over 200,000 listeners since last quarter.
Real Radio Yorkshire takes the lowest figures for the group, recording their lowest figures since launch. 291,000 people are listening per week, compared with 348,000 in the station’s first survey, and a peak of 411,000 in March 2004. However Yorkshire’s new PD Tony McKenzie has already made a significant number of schedule changes since his recent arrival. The next couple of surveys will be very important for this station.
The recent re branding of Saga to Smooth Radio, and Q96 to Rock Radio, are too recent to be judged in these figures.
GMG’s recent purchases made it the country’s fourth largest group, but chief executive John Myers wants more, saying “The listener loyalty to our stations is incredible. We are well on track to becoming the No.3 most listened to group in the UK.”
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