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Overall Trends

There is some new RAJAR data, with much of the listening taking place over the summer months. That does mean that some falls are likely as routines are changed which impacts on how people listen to the radio.

All Radio reach is now at 50.1m a week, that’s up 0.3% on last quarter, but down 1.5% on last year. 86% of the population listens to the radio each week, and that is a gently declining number even if 86% remains fairly high.

I thought it would be worth looking at this number over time, and I’ve compared it with some age groups, getting tighter and tighter towards the youngest listeners.

What this chart shows is that back in 1999 when this RAJAR methodology began, whether you considered “All Adults” or just “15-24s”, everyone was equally as likely to listen to the radio.

Over time, there were gaps that opened up with younger listeners becoming less likely to listen. To be clear, even today, 74% of 15-24s listen to the radio every week which is an incredibly high reach when you think about it. You might be forgiven for thinking that teenagers today only listen to music on Tik Tok and perhaps Spotify, and that’s not the case.

That said, this is reach, and there is a direction of travel amongst all listeners.

All Radio hours fell 0.4% on the quarter and 2.2% on the year to 1.02 billion hours, with the average radio listener now listening for 20.4 hours a week. Back in 1999 it was 22 hours a week, and that was a low quarter, with average hours regularly exceeding 24 hours a week in ’00s.

But as the chart below shows, the drop-offs in time spent listening have been more stark.

All BBC Radio saw its reach fall 0.5% on the quarter and 5.25% on the year to 30.9m listeners a week. Hours fell 1.3% on the quarter and were down a significant 8.4% on the year to 426m.

All Commercial Radio saw its reach rise 0.5% on the quarter, but fall 1.0% on the year to 39.7m. Hours were flat on the quarter (0.0%), and up 2.7% on the year to 572m.

I think that this strongly indicates that commercial groups’ strategy of creating a sometimes bewildering array of digital spin-off stations is working well for them. It’s no surprise that the BBC has been trying to follow suit. The three new stations that it has launched on DAB+, only launched on 12 September, so won’t be measured in this quarter’s RAJAR. But the hope must be that Radio 1 Anthems, Radio 1 Dance and Radio 3 Unwind will help bolster overall listening.

National Networks

Radio 1 has had a disappointing quarter this time around, with reach down 2.3% on the quarter and down 10.6% on the year to 7.3m. Hours were down 5.5% on the quarter and down 16.4% on the year to 46.2m. The station had its Giant Face Off game in this quarter, but that was not enough to stop some quite steep falls.

Radio 2 saw its reach rise 1.3% on the quarter but fall 3.9% on the year to 12.8m. Hours were down 0.6% on the quarter and down 5.0% on the year to 133m hours. 22% of the UK population still listen to Radio 2 in any given week.

Radio 3 didn’t really seem to experience a Proms boost this quarter which will have disappointed. Reach was down 7.2% on the quarter and down 11.4% on the year to 1.8m. Hours were down 6.7% on the quarter and down 16.1% on the year to 13.8m.

Radio 4 saw falls too, with reach down 4.0% on the quarter and down 8.6% on the year to 8.9m. Hours fell 5.9% on the quarter and they fell 12.1% on the year to 101m. These are quite significant decreases. But as with the other news and speech stations, we are comparing a relatively quiet domestic news period this year with a post General Election period in 2024.

Meanwhile BBC Radio 5 Live saw its reach fall 1.8% on the quarter and fall 10.0% on the year to 5.4m. Hours rose 0.1% on the quarter, but fell 12.7% on the year to 31.7m. While the Lionesses were in action during the Women’s Euros, that’s not on the same scale as the Men’s Euros and Olympics the year before, so hours declines aren’t too surprising.

It’s worth noting that some daytime shows on 5 Live have done well. Matt Chorley, who only started in September last year saw his reach increase 34.8% on last quarter and 14.2% on the equivalent timeslot a year ago, with 1.5m listeners a week.

BBC 6 Music has managed to buck the trend of the other larger BBC radio stations. Reach was up 5.7% on the quarter and up 0.4% on the year to 2.7m. Hours were up 2.8% on the quarter and 12.6% on the year to 26.6m.

The BBC World Service has also done fairly well this time around, with reach up 7.4% on the quarter, but down 0.6% on the year to 1.1m. Hours were up 12.1% on the quarter and up 15.2% on the year to 5.5m.

Classic FM saw some falls this quarter, with reach down 3.8% on the quarter and down 3.5% on the year to 4.3m, which is their lowest ever reach. Hours fell 3.1% on the quarter and were down 6.5% on the year to 34.9m. If you consider the whole Classic FM Brand (UK), then reach gets to 4.5m and hours increase to 37.4m. Classic FM Calm gets 374,000 reach with 1.8m hours while Classic FM Movies gets 174,000 reach and 743,000 hours.

Looking at the commercial speech stations, LBC (UK) saw its reach dip 0.2% on the quarter and fall 1.9% on the year to 2.6m. Hours were down 5.5% on the quarter and down 7.4% on the year to 27.0m.

Nick Ferrari has now been on LBC breakfast for over twenty years, and I do sometimes wonder when he’ll retire. But his figures remain strong.

talkSPORT had the same issue that 5 Live had, which was that aside from the Women’s Euros, there wasn’t a major single sports tournament this summer. I would also note that the station, like others in the News group, reports over 6 months, so it includes the end of the football season in these numbers. Reach was down 6.6% on the quarter and down 1.5% on the year to 3.2m. Hours fell 3.0% on the quarter, but rose 10.8% on the year to 22.1m.

Mixed results for Times Radio which saw its reach fall 8.4% on the quarter but rise 1.3% on the year to 564,000. Hours fell 1.7% on the quarter but rose 13.4% on the year to 4.8m.

Talk had a generally positive set of results, and reach rose 3.9% on the quarter but fell 12.2% on the year to 506,000. Hours rose 19.4% on the quarter and were up 0.6% on the year to 5.0m.

GB News saw its reach increase 25% on the quarter and 11.9% on the year to 684,000. Hours rose 60% on the quarter and were up 23.3% on the year to 4.9m. I will note that GB News reports on a three month basis compared with the stations above. It also shares its name with a TV station.

But all of these speech services have had a lot of Trump news to cover during this period alongside domestic politics.

(As an aside, Ofcom this week published updated guidance on having politicians presenting news, guidance which is only slightly changed, but would still seem to impact GB News more than most television and radio stations.)

Virgin Radio saw its reach fall 5.2% on the quarter and fall 15.9% on the year to 1.3m. Hours rose 1.3% on the quarter but fell 19.7% on the year to 6.9m.

Boom Radio had a rare dip this quarter. Reach fell 3.2% on the quarter and fell 1.9% on the year to 688,000. Hours were down 18.7% on the quarter, but up 17.2% on the year to 9.1m. However, the station added Boom Light to RAJAR this quarter with a reach of 106,000 and 975,000 hours. That means that the Boom Brand has a reach of 739,000 and 10.0m hours.

I don’t normally cover Nation Radio, but to hammer home the point that everyone is launching digital spin-off services, Nation 90s launched with 209,000 reach and 149,000 hours, while Nation Classic Hits launched with 17,000 reach and 40,000 hours.

Commercial Networks

Bauer Media Audio (UK) – Total (exc Partners) saw its reach down 0.5% on the quarter, and down 3.2% on tthe year to 21.4m. Hours were up 1.2% on the quarter, but down 3.0% on the year to 200m.

KISS saw its reach fall 3.2% on the quarter and 23.0% on the year to 1.3m, their lowest ever reach. This was a station that regularly floated around the 4m mark between 2015-19. Of course, it came off FM in London a year ago. I once had a conversation with a taxi driver who bemoaned the loss of KISS. I told him it was on DAB and looking at his car radio, realised that he had a DAB set. I told him that he could still listen to the station but he wasn’t convinced! Hours were up 18.4% on the quarter, but down 15.8% on the year to 5.4m.

Sibling upstart KISSTORY saw reach grow 6.4% on the quarter, but fall 10.3% on the year to 2.1m. Hours were up 11.1% on the quarter and down 4.4% on the year to 8.8m. It’s very comfortably bigger than KISS.

Greatest Hits Radio was for a while Bauer’s poster child and could do no wrong. But the growth has stalled now, and this quarter reach was down 6.4% on the quarter and down 16.2% on the year to 6.2m. Hours were similarly down 6.8% on the quarter and down 11.5% on the year to 56.7m.

Looking specifically at Ken Bruce (10-1pm, Mon-Fri, GHR), his reach is down 4.5% on the quarter and down 14.0% on the year to 3.5m.

Across the whole Greatest Hits Radio Network (exc Partners), reach is down 1.4% on the quarter and down 5.1% on the year. Hours are down 3.0% on the quarter and down 1.6% on the year.

Over at Hits Radio which took over KISS London’s FM slot, reach was down 7.2% on the quarter and down 12.2% on the year. Hours were down 13.4% on the quarter and down 27.1% on the year.

The losses were lessened across the entire Hits Radio Network (exc Partners) with reach down 0.4% on the quarter and down 4.4% on the year to 6.9m. Hours were down 3.3% on the quarter and down 8.9% on the year to 44.3m.

There was better news for Bauer with Absolute Radio. The station’s reach was down 3.9% on the quarter, but up 4.9% on the year to 2.1m. Hours were up 14.1% on the quarter and up 4.2% on the year to 14.6m.

Across the whole Absolute Radio Network, reach was up 1.0% on the quarter and down 2.4% on the year to 5.5m. Hours were up 7.3% on the quarter and down 5.3% on the year to 36.6m.

Magic also had a good quarter with reach up 6.6% on the quarter and up 8.8% on the year to 2.4m. Hours rose 11.4% on the quarter and were up 11.2% on the year to 12.7m.

The Magic Network saw reach fall 2.5% on the quarter and fall 5.5% on the year to 3.5m. Hours rose 5.6% on the quarter but fall 4.3% on the year to 19.6m.

Over at Total Global Radio (UK) reach was flat on the quarter (0.0%) and down a modest 0.8% on the year to 27.5m. Hours were up 1.0% on the quarter and up 1.2% on the year to 259m. So they have widened the gap between themselves and Bauer.

Heart Network UK saw its reach fall 3.2% on the quarter and fall 4.4% on the year to 9.4m, but hours grew 0.3% on the quarter and were up 2.1% on the year to 59m. Across the whole Heart Brand (UK) reach was down 1.9% on the quarter and down 1.6% on the year to 12.8m. Hours were down 0.6% on the quarter and up 1.8% on the year to 82m.

The Capital Network (UK) saw its reach grow 0.2% on the quarter, but fall 6.5% on the year to 7.0m. Hours were up 4.8% on the quarter and down 1.5% on the year to 36m. The Capital Brand (UK) saw its reach grow 0.9% on the quarter and fall 3.1% on the year to 9.3m. Hours were better, up 7.6% on the quarter and up 1.4% on the year to 53m.

The Smooth Network (UK) saw its reach down 0.2% on the quarter and down 10.3% on the year to 5.9m. Hours were up 3.3% on the quarter and down 1.9% on the year to 42m. Across the entire Smooth Brand (UK) reach was down 0.9% on the quarter and down 0.4% on the year to 7.6m, while hours were up 4.4% on the quarter and up 8.0% on the year to 53m.

Finally at Global, Radio X Network (UK) saw reach up 4.4% on the quarter, although down 6.9% on the year to 2.0m. Hours were up 3.5% on the quarter, but down 4.6% on the year to 16.5m. There was a better story across the Radio X Brand (UK) with reach up 4.6% on the quarter and up 8.2% on the year to 2.5m, while hours were up 4.1% on the quarter and up 4.6% on the year to 19.5m.

Digital & MIDAS

This quarter saw the lowest ever reach for listening to the radio via AM/FM with just 27.1m listening via that platform compared with 35.2m who listen via DAB. It was also the lowest ever number of hours on AM/FM with 268m or just 26.2% of listening hours being via AM/FM.

RAJAR this quarter is reporting the highest ever number of people listening to podcasts each week, with 28.3% of the population saying that they do so, up from 28.0% last quarter. That’s 16.5m adults.

And it’s worth reminding ourselves, that podcast listening is not captured in station listening above. So if I am listening to three hours of Radio 4 podcasts, those figures are not built into Radio 4’s listenership above. As more people stream on demand in Sounds, Global Player, Raya or their podcast app of choice, and don’t listen live, then that listening is “lost” in the main RAJAR survey.

I would note that a year ago, the equivalent figure was just 21.8%, and there was a big reported leap in Q2 2025 which as been maintained. It will probably be worth exploring what has changed to cause this jump. But the figures are the figures.

UPDATE: The reason for the jump was because of a methodological change made by RAJAR, and the question about podcast consumption was asked by the in-person interviewer. That reduced the number of non-respondents to the question, and therefore more people answered it. This should make the number much more accurate.

It’s also worth noting that a couple of weeks ago, RAJAR released their most recent MIDAS report for summer 2025. I won’t make this piece too long by diving too much into this report, and urge you to go away and read it if you’re interested. But a couple of key charts are worth sharing:

This chart shows different kinds of audio listening dependent on the demographic. Unsurprisingly, younger people like On Demand Music (i.e. Spotify/Apple Music) compared with older people. Podcasts are reasonably popular across the different age ranges (note that this report uses different data and methodology to the main RAJAR data above, so shouldn’t be directly compared).

And this chart shows different types of listening shares according to age, making clear the dominance of On Demand Music over Live Radio in the 15-24 demo which we all knew from the data above.

The final MIDAS chart I’ll share is the number of podcasts episodes a week that listener claim to listen to. I always find that it’s a healthy reminder that most people listen to very few episodes, and therefore you should be thinking twice about that 90 minute epic episode you’re planning even though you know that “Joe Rogan’s episodes run for much longer, so what’s the problem?”

If you’re like me, and listen to 11+ episodes of podcasts a week, you should know that we’re both very much in the minority.

Elsewhere

Matt Deegan‘s newsletter is here
The official RAJAR site has all the topline figures
Radio Today for a digest of all the main news
Media.Info for lots of numbers and charts
The Media Leader will have analysis
BBC Mediacentre for BBC Radio stats and findings
Bauer Media’s corporate site
Global Radio’s corporate site
Radiocentre’s website

All my previous RAJAR analyses are here.

Source: RAJAR/Ipsos MORI/RSMB, period ending 14 September 2025, Adults 15+.

Updates: Added detail for RAJAR’s podcast question. Corrected the figures for Nation 90s.

Disclaimer: These are my views alone and do not represent those of anyone else, including my employer. Any errors (I hope there aren’t any!) are mine alone. Drop me a note if you want clarifications on anything. Access to the RAJAR data is via RALF from DP Software as mentioned at the top of this post.