BBC 6 Music’s audience has grown from 1.2m a year ago to 1.6m this quarter, as weekly DAB reach is at an all time high.
15.3 million adults are now listening to DAB each week – up 10% from 13.9 million adults in Q3 2011.
Other stations enjoying an increase includes Jazz FM – now on an all-time high of 624,000 listeners – its fourth successive rise – and 2.8m total hours.
Planet Rock’s average hours are up to 8.2 but reach is down quarter on quarter. Chairman Malcolm Bluemel said “This is another great result for Planet Rock, proving once again the loyalty and commitment of our fantastic audience.”
Radio 4 Extra is the number one digital-only station, and Radio 4 has the highest digital audience with over 5 million digital listeners each week. DAB records its highest ever share of radio listening, up to 20.4% from 18% in Q3 2011
Smash Hits is the number one digital commercial radio station across the UK, reach up 9% year on year whilst heat radio’s year on year reach and total hours jump 7.9% and 6.5% respectively. Bauer has 3 of the top 5 digital stations.
Ford Ennals, CEO of Digital Radio UK, says: “It is pleasing to see that DAB has reached record levels of hours, share and reach in this atypical Olympics quarter. Digital stations are showing strong growth in reach, with spoken word and music genre stations performing particularly well.”
Listening to digital radio platforms now accounts for 31.3% of radio listening hours, up from 26.9% the year before, an increase of 7.6%, in what was a unique listening quarter due to the Olympic Games. Weekly digital reach is now 46% of UK adults, or 51% of radio listeners. In total 23.9 million people now listen to radio via a digital platform each week, up 5% year on year from 22.8 million in Q3 2011.
Posted on Thursday, October 25th, 2012 at 12:19 am by RadioToday UK