The latest RAJAR figures are out, showcasing what the UK is listening to!
Here are the Q4 (16th September – 15th December) 2024 headlines:
- All Radio reach remains at 87% and delivers 50.3 million listeners each week.
- Commercial Radio is now reaching 40 million listeners every week, 8.2 million more listeners than BBC Radio.
- Commercial Radio share overall up on the quarter and is now at 53.9% versus the BBC at 44.2% (the remainder is other listening).
We’ve been going through the data to bring you highlights…
National Stations and Networks
After six quarters of consecutive growth, Global has hit a record RAJAR reach with more than 29.2 million weekly listeners. Global owns the top 3 commercial radio brands nationally for reach with Heart, Capital and Smooth.
The Heart Brand is holding its own again with Q4 2024 showing strong results with over 13.3 million weekly listeners, adding 306,000 listeners and 747,000 new hours. Contributing to this will have been Heart Breakfast, hosted by Jamie Theakston and Amanda Holden – the UK’s biggest commercial breakfast show with 4.2 million weekly listeners.
Last quarter (Q3 2024), the Capital Brand recorded its highest ever reach of 9.7million and has successfully retained this audience gain in Q4 with a weekly reach of9,688,000. The full brand includes the Capital Network, Capital XTRA station plus digital spin-offs; Capital Dance, Capital Chill, Capital XTRA Reloaded and now the recently launched spin-off Capital Anthems. The Capital Network on its own accounts for 7.5million weekly listeners and 37.6 million hours.
The Smooth Brand is sailing in smooth waters, posting a weekly increase of 2.3% in Q4 – up from 7,668,000 to 7,841,000 weekly listeners quarter on quarter.
Over at the LBC Brand they’ve seen a modest 1.3% increase in total hours, rising from 31,684,000 to 32,099,000, as listeners tune in for longer periods, with the average hours per listener increasing from 9.3 to 9.6, compared to Q3. LBC’s Nick Ferrari at Breakfast celebrates its highest ever audience in Q3 with 1.5 million weekly listeners and is London’s number one commercial breakfast show in hours and share.
The Absolute Radio Network’s weekly reach has remained stable at 5.6 million listeners, which is a year-on-year increase of 6%. The Hits Radio Network has also maintained weekly reach of 7.2 million this quarter. One performance of note is the flagship Absolute Radio which has gained 166,000 listeners since the last survey, an 8% increase to 2,140,000.
The Greatest Hits Network has been one of commercial radio’s great success stories since the launch in 2019, and there are now signs that the network has matured and truly found its place. This quarter, the network added 0.6% reach and maintained its impressive listening hours, with each listener tuning in for 8.6 hours per week. Q4 has also seen Rossie at Breakfast grow to over 3m listeners for the first time.
News and Talk stations
The UK public’s interest in local, national and international news continues with LBC (UK) posting a stable quarter in terms of weekly reach. However, its total hours increased by almost 3%, from 29,182,000 to 29,941,000, as listeners spend more time tuning in, with the average hours per listener rising from 10.8 to 11.1.
Q4 2024 was a successful one for Times Radio with reach up 8% on the quarter and 23% year on year. This news brand is now delivering 604,000 weekly listeners.
Whist talkSPORT remained level on the quarter at 3.25 million listeners (up 6% year on year), sister station, talkSPORT2, increased its reach by a magnificent 26% to 541,000 weekly listeners (up 36% year on year).
Over at GB News, they have also increased their weekly reach year on year by 9% to 468,000 listeners.
Digital Listening and Digital Only Stations
In Q4, it’s been revealed that 44 million adults aged 15+ are now tuning in to radio via a digitally enabled platform (DAB, DTV, online/app, or smart speaker) each week.
72% of weekly listening hours are consumed digitally, 28% are listened to online, with 21% saying they listen to radio through a smart speaker every week.
With the popularity of Wicked the movie released at the end of last year, it comes as no surprise that the nation is loving their musical theatre. Magic at the Musicals continues to grow this quarter with its weekly reach rising by 12.9% from 264,000 to 298,000. Its total hours have also gone up by 6% from 1,125,000 to 1,193,000.
There has been a whole raft of new digital spin-off stations that have been launched and Q4 2024 was the first RAJAR survey. It’ll be interesting to see how these new kids on the block fare over the next year. See their figures below:
| Capital Anthems | 440,000 |
| GHR 60s | 386,000 |
| Smooth 70s | 317,000 |
| Heart 10s | 292,000 |
| Classic Calm | 238,000 |
| Centreforce 883 | 215,000 |
| Smooth Soul | 206,000 |
| Heart Love | 201,000 |
| Classic Movies | 154,000 |
| Heart Musicals | 134,000 |
| Radio X 00s | 133,000 |
| Radio X 90s | 129,000 |
| Radio X Chilled | 129,000 |
Digitally, we’re seeing a massive 80’s revival! Smooth 80’s has the highest weekly reach out of all of Smooth’s digital stations and Heart 80’s has seen the best part of half a million hours added this quarter (a 7% growth) and pushing the reach up by 2% quarter on quarter.
Heart Dance has added an impressive 706,000 hours, now totalling 4.8 million, that’s a lot of dancing to get to this 17% uplift!
The Capital XTRA Brand is still on song as the biggest for Hip Hop & RnB, now reaching nearly 2.1 million listeners each week,.
Meanwhile, Mellow Magic has increased its weekly reach this quarter, growing by 5,000 to 435,000 weekly listeners.
Those of a certain age will be pleased that Boom Radio is still booming, now at 706,000 up 13% year on year.
Absolute 00s and Absolute 10s are up 8% to 432,000 and 10% to 265,000 respectively. Whereas Absolute 90s has reported its highest ever reach, breaking the 1 million barrier and up 5.4% quarter on quarter to 1,028,000 weekly listeners.
Absolute Radio Country is like a speeding flatbed truck, building on last quarter’s record set of results and increasing its weekly reach further by 13% to 610,000.
London
The big winner in London was Heart London with reach going over 2 million (up 9%) to 2.1 million, coupled with strong hours growth of 17%, with hours now close to 11 million, although LBC London has the highest share of listening across commercial stations at 8.2%. Heart London also has the most listened to commercial breakfast show with Jamie and Amanda pulling in an audience of 830,000 listeners every week – up from 740,000 in Q3.
Magic London also saw magical increases in both reach (up 9% to 1.2 million) and a small increase in hours, which are now close to 5 million per week.
Bauer owned station, Greatest Hits Radio London also saw a strong rise in listening hours, up 16% quarter on quarter to over 6 million hours listened each week,.
The top 5 London stations are as follows:
Weekly Reach (000’s)
| Heart London | 2,113 |
| Capital London | 1,711 |
| LBC London | 1,399 |
| Smooth London | 1,134 |
| GHR (London) | 1,040 |
Total Listening Hours (000’s)
| LBC London | 15,712 |
| Heart London | 10,826 |
| Capital London | 7,906 |
| Smooth London | 4,982 |
| GHR (London) | 6,068 |
Locally
In the regions, there have been some solid performances this quarter.
Across the border, Heart Scotland had a great quarter with a 12% rise in weekly reach to 432,000, leading to total hours growing by 279,000, a 23% increase. .
It’s gold all the way for Gold Cambridgeshire, up 12.1% in reach quarter on quarter and 37% year on year, now with 37,000 weekly listeners. This station now has the longest average listening hours in the network with its audience tuning in for 7.1 hours each per week.
Smooth Radio Three Counties increased its weekly reach from 42,000 to 46,000 – a 9% increase compared to Q3 2024.
In the home counties, Greatest Hits Radio Bucks, Beds and Herts added 20,000 listeners (up 49%) to achieve a new reach of 61,000.
Capital Brighton grew total hours by 29.4% from 136,000 to 176,000 quarter on quarter. It also increased reach by 3% from 30,000 to 31,000.
In the North West, Capital Lancashire and Capital Manchester combined saw reach grow by 10% to 637,000 and total hours by 14.5% (combined) since last quarter.
Summary
In Q4 2024, Commercial Radio delivered another solid set of results.
Listeners are enjoying the entertainment, news and information provided by the wide range of stations now available through linear radio as well as digital devices.
This provides agencies and their advertisers access to over 40 million people each week to help them communicate both brand and direct response messages.
For a quick overview, take a look at our infographic and if you’d like to know more about the Q4 2024 RAJAR or any other aspects of radio and digital audio advertising, please get in touch.
