Smooth Radio made a good start for its journey as a national brand, reaching over three million listeners each week across the UK.
The figure, up from 2.8m last quarter, is the last set of results for Smooth as a collection of six mostly regional stations.
Regionally, Smooth’s London audience heads back to 544,000 adults a week – up 129,000 from last quarter, and stations in the North West, North East and East Midlands regions achieve record reach.
As a group, GMG Radio now has 5.2 million adults listen to a GMG Radio station, and 1 in 4 listeners tune-in via a digital platform
Real Radio Wales also has record reach of 434,000 prior to its national roll out in January whilst the North West station gains an extra 71,000 since this time last year. Real in the North East, Yorkshire and Scotland dropped in reach.
Rock Radio on FM in Manchester and Paisley both reported an increase in listeners.
GMG Radio Group Programme Director John Simons said: “Smooth Radio’s record reach and increased listening hours are fantastic news for the brand, and provide an excellent platform now the station broadcasts nationally. The scope for Smooth Radio is huge and we’re looking forward to seeing this growth continue as more and more people discover the station across the UK. We firmly believe Smooth has the potential to become the UK’s biggest national commercial station and these figures show it’s heading in the right direction!”