UTV: talkSPORT wins more fans

Just days after being named UK Radio Station of the Year, talkSPORT has received its best ever RAJAR results with weekly reach up more than a third in the space of a year.

The station recorded an all-time high reach of 3.25m (up 37 percent year on year), with total listening hours also up by a similar amount year on year to 22.2m, although they're down from last quarter.

The station’s mid-morning show posted a year on year increase of 35 percent, despite high profile signings Richard Keys and Andy Gray only joining half way through the Q1/11 period in mid-February. UTV says 80 percent (2.6m) of the station’s audience is male and the reach among 15-44 year old men is up 47 percent.

Moz Dee, talkSPORT’s Programme Director, said: “This is a very promising start to 2011 and shows that our recent record-breaking figures are not just a flash in the pan, but rather a sign of consistent and significant growth as we continue to win new listeners. I’m very proud of everyone in the programming team, as they have worked so hard to build credibility in sports journalism and made talkSPORT must-listen radio for sports fans.”

UTV’s group of local radio stations recorded 14 percent rises in reach and hours in the latest set of data, when compared with Q1/10. Liverpool’s Juice FM now has 175,000 listeners – the highest ever reach in the station’s history. Bradford AM station Pulse 2 has increased its audience size by 71 percent in 12 months (31,000 to 53,000) and listening hours have more than trebled from 103k a year ago to 342k. It’s FM sister The Pulse had an increase in reach of 50,000 year on year to now serve an audience of 176k, the biggest its been in more than six years.

Calum Macaulay, Director of Local Radio for UTV Media, said: “This is great news and reflects a lot of hard work from everyone around the stations. As other groups move towards more networked programming and quasi-national brands we have maintained our commitment to localness and our ‘Proud to be Local’ positioning is gaining cut-through with both our audiences and our advertisers.”

Discuss all things RAJAR in the re-launched [link=https://radiotoday.co.uk/forums]Radio Today forums[/link]. Registration is free and easy.