UTV: Rugby world cup helps talkSPORT

Commentary from the 2011 Rugby World Cup has helped sports station talkSPORT post its best ever set of quarter 4 figures.

The UTV Media station’s 3.196m weekly audience is up 2% this quarter, and 3.5% year on year.

The station says 2.6m of its listeners (80%) are male and that its Saturday evening Premier League football commentaries are attracting nearly 10% more listeners now than they were 12 months ago.

Moz Dee, talkSPORT Programme Director and Sony Programmer of the Year, said: “Continued investment in our product of live sports rights and talent is clearly paying off. We were the only place to hear the biggest sporting tournament of last year – the 2011 Rugby World Cup and it’s great news that the event proved a draw for listeners. The audience is growing more aware of our live football and I’m really looking forward to a big year with commentary of live and exclusive Barclays Premier League and UEFA Champions League matches before the end of the season, as well as the football event of the year – the UEFA EURO 2012 tournament.”

talkSPORT has also released website and smartphone app figures to coincide with the latest RAJAR numbers. It says talksport.co.uk receives around 2m unique users every month and saw a 89% increase in users in December 2011 compared with December 2010. The station’s iPhone app had 928,000 sessions in December – the highest ever in a single month and a 65% rise year on year.

UTV Local Radio

At UTV Media’s 13 local stations across England and Wales, Signal 1 in Stoke was the toast of the group with a new reach of 310,000 (up 17% year on year). Calum Macaulay, Director of Local Radio for UTV Media said: “Signal continues to go from strength to strength. It knows its audience inside and out, is unashamedly local and consistently produces great radio shows. The station is right up there with the best in British radio.”

Liverpool’s 107.6 Juice FM hit its highest ever reach (195,000) and hours (1.5m), while Warrington station Wire FM is up 22% on reach and Bolton’s Tower FM up 24% over the 12 months of 2011.

Macaulay added: “We’ve posted some great performances and it’s great to see our investment in Live Premier League football and Live Superleague paying dividends. We are proud to be local and are constantly investing to improve our local engagement.”