The battle of the radio brands continue

Kiss is on top form for Bauer Media as the brand reaches over five million listeners nationwide, but Capital FM is leading the hit music race with 7.7 million people tuning in each week.

In the year when commercial radio celebrates 40 years of broadcasting, the fight for listeners is as strong as ever.

Capital has added 865,000 new listeners in the past year across the UK, and 95.8 in London remains the station with the most commercial listeners at 2.2m. Nationally, Capital has overtaken Heart as the biggest commercial radio brand.

Kiss is in second place, followed by Magic in 3rd and Heart in 4th in terms of weekly reach although Magic 105.4 is number one for share and hours.

London Weekly Reach – Commercial Radio

1. Capital FM (2,170,000)
2. Kiss (1,974,000)
3. Magic (1,967,000)
4. Heart (1,742,000)
5. LBC (1,073,000)

Bauer is celebrating as the Passion Portfolio recorded its highest-ever reach of 7.6m adults each week, up 19.2% since this time last year.

Dee Ford, Group Managing Director Radio, Bauer Media, said: “This is truly a WOW moment for the radio team at Bauer Media as it records its highest ever reach. And we are not complacent for one minute – with constant crafting and development of new channels such as Kisstory and Kiss Fresh ongoing – and already performing better than could ever have been expected at this stage.”

At Global, LBC gets its highest ever London reach at 1.1 million listeners whilst Nick Ferrari gains 88,000 listeners year on year at breakfast. The Capital London Breakfast show with Dave Berry and Lisa Snowdon retains its spot as London’s most popular breakfast show.

Heart London is down in reach, and this quarter’s hours are the lowest ever.

Global Radio’s new brand Smooth Radio stays steady at 3.3m nationally, whilst the recently closed Smooth 70s ended on 771,000 – its highest ever figure.

Richard Park, group executive director and director of broadcasting of Global, said: “We are hugely delighted that our programming strategy and our engagement with listeners is yielding such impressive results. I am particularly proud that LBC is on such a roll, celebrating its 40th birthday earlier this month, and now posting its biggest ever audience share in London for the brand.”

Ashley Tabor, founder & executive president at Global said: “Securing another record number of listeners for Global stations is a great result for us. It is testament to the investment we’ve made in our stations and shows and the hard work of the team at Global. Gaining 865,000 new listeners in the past year is a huge achievement for Capital in particular, making it the UK’s number one commercial radio brand.”