talkSPORT had a great end to 2010, recording its highest ever reach, hours and market share and overtaking Smooth to become the number two national commercial radio station in the UK.
Owners UTV also say listening to their portfolio of local radio stations across the country is up by 17 percent.
For talkSPORT, reach is now 3.1m (up a quarter year-on-year), hours are up a fifth in 12 months to 24.5m, and market share is up to 2.3 percent – all the highest they’ve ever been since the launch of Talk Radio in 1995. Men make up 81 percent of the audience, while almost a fifth of all listeners are in the 25-34 age bracket.
Moz Dee, talkSPORT’s Programme Director, said, “I’m very proud of our programming team, who have not just maintained the astonishing figures we saw last quarter, but actually improved on them by continuing to build credibility in sports journalism. With live rights, talkSPORT is becoming a default listen for sports fans.”
Around the UTV group, Juice in Liverpool saw a big jump in both reach and hours. Hours more than doubled, from 595,000 last year to 1,495,000 in Q4/10 – while reach is up from 122k to 164k in 12 months.
The Pulse and Pulse 2 in West Yorkshire recorded a 50% increase in hours year on year, to 1.4 million. 107.4 Peak FM and Radio Wave 96.5 both enjoyed an increase in listening hours year on year. Staffordshire and Cheshire’s Signal 1 and 2 posted a reach increase of 11% in the last year, the highest combined reach for five years.
Calum Macaulay, Director of Local Radio for UTV Media, said: “These figures are really encouraging and are a result of the dedication and hard work of our programming and presentation team. As other groups are pushing towards more networking, we are proud to be local and are constantly investing to improve our local content and local engagement. We have brought back live Premier League football commentary onto our stations in Wigan and Bolton and are ramping up our local rugby league coverage with live commentary for the Wigan Warriors, The Saints and Warrington Wolves.”