Radioplayer gets 6.7m users in August

The UK’s online radio listening platform is celebrating six months since launching with the announcement that it received 6.7 million unique users during the month of August.

Michael Hill, Managing Director of the company set up to deliver the project for the industry, announced at the nextrad.io event in London this morning that there are also now 282 stations live on the player.

Radioplayer is home to all BBC national and local stations, stations from the major commercial radio groups and a growing list of community and student stations.

Mr Hill said that data shows listeners use Radioplayer heavily during the working day, with a peak at 9am, a drop-off at the end of the working day and another weekday evening peak when people arrive home. He added that there are noticeable dips in traffic at weekends, bank holidays and across holiday periods when people aren’t at work.

We’re told Real Radio in Manchester saw three times their normal Radioplayer traffic when One Direction visited, after the band tweeted to alert their huge fan-base. And LBC saw six times its normal traffic to online listening during the recent riots – a trend that was also felt at stations including BRMB, BBC Radio 5 Live and in BBC local radio.

Hill also told delegates at the conference that Radioplayer’s success now looks set to go global, following several inquiries from overseas companies looking to replicate its ground-breaking model. He added that from later this year they would be adding podcasts to Radioplayer, with people just able to send an RSS feed link to the team to be considered for inclusion.

Michael told RadioToday.co.uk: “Attracting 6.7 million users in August is testament to the strength of the UK radio industry, combined with the simplicity of putting ‘UK radio in one place’. We’ll see further peaks and troughs, but I’m really proud of what we have achieved so far.”

Andrew Harrison, Chairman of Radioplayer added: “Radioplayer has gathered some real momentum in its first six months, establishing a strong base of users, as well reaching out to new audiences via innovations like the Facebook app.”