Radio listening reaches 91.7 per cent

There’s a new record for radio listening in the UK this quarter as 91.7% of the population tune in to radio every week.

The figure represents listening during quarter 2 of 2011, and is only a slight increase on the previous quarter’s record of 91.6%.

Listening via a digital receiver (DAB, DTV etc) reaches 26.9%, with 20.2 million adults having access to a DAB radio set. Internet listening hours up by 15.4% year on year but the overall listener count online remains low, and 7.5 million adults listen to the radio via a digital TV – up 11% year-on-year.

Commercial radio is celebrating more than 34 million people listening each week, up a million since this time last year, but the share of listening compared with the BBC stands at 43.7%.

The BBC still rules the airwaves with a 54% share of all listening.

BBC Radio 2 is still the nation’s most popular station with almost 14 million listeners, followed by BBC Radio 4 (and 4 Extra) with 11 million. In the national commercial sector, Classic FM has 5.7 million, talkSPORT has 3.212m followed by Absolute Radio with a total of 1.64m.

Quasi-national stations Heart, Capital and Kiss, Gold and Smooth are all doing well – all attracting a higher audience this quarter.