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Overall Trends
The Q2 2026 RAJAR release measures the period ending 28th June 2026, and a brief reminder that only the BBC national stations and a handful of the biggest commercial stations are actually measuring the April-June period. The majority of stations are six-month weighted and are therefore being measured over the January-June period.
It’s also worth noting that Q2 each year is when RAJAR updates their population figures. The adult UK population is increasing over time, and the number is updated once a year. The RAJAR population of adults aged 15+ is now 59.047m up from 58.246m last year. That represents a 1.4% increase. That’s useful to understand, because if radio listening was flat across all demographics, then you would expect a like-for-like growth across the board just because the population is growing.
All Radio is up 1.0% on the quarter and up 2.2% on the year in reach terms to 51.1m listeners a week. That’s 87% of the population listening to at least 15 minutes of radio a week (the minimum amount measured). Hours are also up – 3.3% on the quarter and 1.4% on the year to 1.04 billion hours a week.
The average radio listener is listening for 20.3 hours a week or 2.9 hours a day, and the average age of a radio listener is 49.
I thought it might be useful to have a look at these trends over the last five years.
The charts are pretty consistent over this period, with perhaps 15-24 hours being the most concerning here.
All Commercial Radio saw it’s reach grow 2.4% on the quarter and 1.7% on the year to 40.2m listeners a reach. Hours were up 4.7% on the quarter and up 0.2% on the year to 573m hours a week.
All BBC saw its reach fall 1.3% on the quarter and was down 0.5% on the year to 30.9m. Hours were up 1.4% on the quarter and up 2.7% on the year to 443m hours a week.
Commercial radio listeners listen for an average of 14.3 hours a week, and BBC radio listeners also listen for an average of 14.3m hours a week.
National Networks
BBC Radio 1 saw its reach fall 1.8% on the quarter and fall 7.7% on the year to 6.9m. Similarly, hours fell 3.5% on the quarter and fell 11.4% on the year to 43.4m. But across the BBC Radio 1 Brand, reach grew 1.8% on the quarter to 7.5m, and hours fell 0.6% to 48.2m. Individually, BBC Radio 1 Anthems grew reach 40.0% on the quarter to 584,000, while hours grew 36.8% on the quarter to 2.1m. BBC Radio 1 Dance grew its reach 40.7% on the quarter to 615,000 while hours grew 39.3% to 2.3m. Note that Radio 1Xtra is not included in the BBC Radio 1 Brand measure.
One way or another, it looks like the Radio 1 audience is dispersing to an extent into its sub-brands, mirroring what commercial radio has been doing for more than 15 years at this point.
Notably, BBC 6 Music launched Indie Forever a couple of weeks ago, which is only available on BBC Sounds. Overall, 6 Music saw it’s reach fall 2.4% on the quarter, and was flat on the year at 2.6m. Hours were up 2.0% on the quarter and down 3.0% on the year at 25.1m.
BBC Radio 2 has seen Sara Cox start on breakfast, but that post-dates this RAJAR, which mostly saw Gary Davies sitting in at breakfast. Reach was down 1.6% on the quarter and down 2.0% on the year to 12.4m. Hours were up 3.7% on the quarter and up 3.3% on the year to 138m.
BBC Radio 3 saw a dip this quarter, with reach down 8.8% on the quarter and down 3.4% on the year to 1.9m. Hours were down 1.4% on the quarter but up 7.1% on the year to 15.9m. But as with Radio 1, it makes some of this up when you consider the overall BBC Radio 3 Brand. Reach was up 1.2% on the quarter to 2.2m and hours were up 5.9% to 18.4m. BBC Radio 3 Unwind in particular saw its reach grow 5.2% on the quarter to 408,000, while hours fell 3.2% to 2.3m.
BBC Radio 4 saw its reach fall 2.3% on the quarter and fall 3.2% on the year to 8.9m. Hours were up 0.3% on the quarter and up 1.0% on the year to 108m. Across Radio 4 (including 4 Extra) reach fell 2.7% on the quarter and was down 3.3% on the year to 9.3m. Hours fell 1.6% on the quarter but were flat on the year (0.0%) to 118m.
Towards the end of this period, we had the Makerfield byelection and emergence of Andy Burnham as the presumptive candidate for Prime Minister. We also had the start of the heatwave. Maybe that contributed to the rise in hours if not reach.
BBC Radio 5 Live had the end of a Premier League season and the first couple of weeks of the World Cup included in this quarter. It also faces some big schedule changes in the coming months as Rachel Burden swaps with Naga Munchetty, while Rick Edwards leaves breakfast (and stays with the long running Fighting Talk). And Tony Livesey has also dropped off the schedule and is now leaving permanently. But none of this turbulence will really affect this RAJAR release.
Reach was up 2.7% on the quarter and down 0.2% on the year to 5.5m. Hours fell 0.8% on the quarter and up 1.3% on the year to 32.1m. BBC Radio 5 Live (inc sports extra) saw its reach rise 5.9% on the quarter and and 2.5% on the year to 5.9m. Hours rose 4.1% on the quarter and rose 6.3% on the year to 35.8m. 5 Live has been pushing multiple versions of Sports Extra on air a lot with some of the overspill coverage they’ve had during a busy sports period. It looks like both this, and the news mentioned above have contributed to these figures.
BBC World Service saw its reach fall 13.6% on the quarter and fall 7.3% on the year to 943,000. Hours fell 10.3% on the quarter and fell 3.6% on the year to 4.7m.
Classic FM saw its reach grow 2.8% on the quarter, but fall 3.2% on the year to 4.3m. Hours were up 3.5% on the quarter and down 3.9% on the year to 34.6m.
talkSPORT similarly had a Premier League run-in and the start of the World Cup. It saw its reach rise 1.0% on the quarter but fall 1.7% on the year to 3.3m. Hours were up 1.1% on the quarter and down 1.3% on the year to 22.5m.
LBC (UK) saw its reach rise 0.8% on the quarter and 9.5% on the year to 2.9m. Hours were up 0.8% on the quarter, but fell 2.0% on the year to 28.0m. Across the full LBC Brand reach rose 3.7% on the quarter and it rose 9.2% on the year to 3.7m. Hours were up 1.5% on the quarter, but were down 1.1% on the year to 31.3m.
Virgin Radio saw its reach fall 3.4% on the quarter and it was down 26.7% on the year to 1.0m. Hours were down 3.0% on the quarter and down 9.4% on the year to 6.2m. Across the wider Virgin Radio Network reach was up 0.6% on the quarter and down 18.3% on the year to 1.8m. Hours were down 3.3% on the quarter and down 15.6% on the year to 7.9m.
Times Radio had a strong set of numbers, with reach up 9.3% on the quarter and up 7.1% on the year to 660,000. Hours were up 19.1% on the quarter and up 21.3% on the year to 5.9m. (There was an interesting story about how Times Radio and Boom Radio have been cross-promoting themselves to the others’ audiences despite having entirely independent ownership structures. It’s rare enough for brands within the same group to cross-promote each other, which shows you how unusual this is).
Boom Radio saw its reach fall 0.2% on the quarter and fall 9.8% on the year to 635,000. Hours were up 0.6% on the quarter, but down 9.8% on the year to 9.4m. Across the Boom Brand reach was up 0.9% on the quarter to 677,000 and hours were down 0.9% on the year to 9.8m.
There is a new Scottish radio station that launched at the start of the year, but only came onto RAJAR this quarter. STV Radio comes from the commercial television company, which has launched across Scotland on DAB and streaming. It’s mostly music, but has entertainment strands too. Reach is 139,000 (about 3% reach in its broadcast footprint) and hours are 1.3m.
Commercial Groups
Total Global Radio (UK) saw its reach increase 1.8% on the quarter, and increase 0.4% on the year to 27.6m. Global now reaches 47% of the UK population. Hours were up 0.5% on the quarter and down 0.1% on the year to 256m.
Bauer Media Audio UK – Total (exc. Partners) saw its reach grow 2.4% on the quarter, but fall 1.9% on the year to 21.1m (36% reach). Hours were up 2.5% on the quarter and down 1.2% on the year to 195m.
KISS had a really good quarter, with reach up 17.9% on the quarter and a massive 31.9% on the year to 1.7m. Hours were up 1.1% on the quarter and up 36.6% on the year to 6.3m. Tyler West and Chloe Burrows took over breakfast in February this year, so this is their first full quarter, with the show’s reach also up 40% year on year. KISSTORY also did well, with reach up 11.6% on the quarter and 2.9% on the year to 2.0m. Hours were up 5.7% on the quarter and up 13.5% on the year to 9.0m. That meant that over the full KISS Network reach was up 11.6% on the quarter and up 3.4% on the year to 3.7m. Hours were up 13.8% on the quarter and up 19.5% on the year to 18.8m.
At Bauer Greatest Hits Radio had a poor set of results last quarter, and they’ve stemmed the fall a bit this time around. Reach was up 0.9% on the quarter, but down 13.0% on the year to 5.8m. Hours were up 2.1% on the quarter, but down 8.0% on the year to 56m.
Hits Radio saw its reach fall 3.0% on the quarter and fall 15.7% on the year to 3.7m. Hours were up 3.0% on the quarter, but down 21.0% on the year to 17.3m.
Absolute Radio saw it’s reach grow 0.4% on the quarter, but fall 6.2% on the year to 2.0m. Hours were down 12.1% on the quarter and were down 9.0% on the year to 11.6. The Absolute Radio Network saw its reach rise 2.3% on the quarter, but fall 1.3% on the year to 5.4m. Hours rose 0.6% on the quarter and rose 4.0% on the year to 35.5m.
Magic had a 2.4% increase in reach on the quarter, but suffered a 1.7% fall on the year to 2.2m. Hours were up 4.0% on the quarter and up 0.3% on the year to 11.4m. Magic Network saw its reach fall 3.4% on the quarter and fall 7.3% on the year to 3.3m. Hours fell 7.9% on the quarter and fell 3.4% on the year to 17.9m.
Meanwhile, Global’s biggest station is Heart Network UK. It saw modest changes this time, with reach up 0.3% on the quarter and down 3.0% on the year to 9.4m. Hours were down 0.4% on the quarter and down 0.3% on the year to 59m. Across the entire Heart Brand (UK), reach was up 2.6% on the quarter, but down 1.6% on the year to 12.8m. Hours were up 2.7% on the quarter and up 0.2% on the year to 83m.
Capital Network (UK) saw it’s reach flat on the quarter (0.0%), and down 7.0% on the year to 6.5m. Hours were down 3.4% on the quarter and down 1.7% on the year to 34m. The Capital Brand (UK) saw its reach rise 0.7% on the quarter, but fall 4.7% on the year to 8.9m. Hours fell 3.9% on the quarter and were down 0.6% on the year to 49m.
The differences between both Heart and Capital’s Network and Brand numbers show you the relative importance of the digital spin-off stations that each brand has. For example, the wider brand contributes another 42% to Capital Network’s hours.
Radio X Network (UK) saw its reach rise 2.0% on the quarter, but fall 1.7% on the year to 1.9m. Hours were down 2.2% on the quarter but up 1.6% on the year to 16.2m. For the full Radio X Brand (UK) reach grew 2.9% on the quarter, and was down 1.0% on the year to 2.4m. Hours fell 0.5% on the quarter, but were up 5.3% on the year to 20m.
Finally, Smooth Network (UK) saw its reach fall 2.1% on the quarter and it fell 6.3% on the year to 5.6m. Hours rose 4.5% on the quarter, but fall 1.5% on the year to 40m. Smooth Brand (UK) saw its reach rise 0.4% on the quarter, but drop 4.4% on the year to 7.4m. Hours were up 6.3% on the quarter, and up 2.1% on the year to 51m.
Podcasts and Digital
27% of the population listen to podcasts at least once a week. That’s the same as the number last quarter. (A reminder that you shouldn’t compare this survey’s figures with those from other surveys since the methodologies differ). That represents 15.9m people.
23.9% of the population listen to the radio via smart speakers. That’s up very slightly from 23.7% last quarter. But I’d note that 49.8% of the population own a smart speaker. Maybe some of these have been relegated to the back of cupboards or drawers?
76% of listening is now via a digital platform which is on a part with last quarter.
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 June 28th 2026, Adults 15+.
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.
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