{"id":79361,"date":"2026-02-19T16:21:03","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T16:21:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/?p=79361"},"modified":"2026-02-19T16:21:03","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T16:21:03","slug":"rajar-midas-winter-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/rajar-midas-winter-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"RAJAR &#8220;MIDAS&#8221; Winter 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A couple of weeks after the regular <a href=\"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/rajar-q4-2025\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"79331\">RAJAR<\/a> release, and we now have the most recent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rajar.co.uk\/docs\/news\/MIDAS%20Winter%202025.pdf\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.rajar.co.uk\/docs\/news\/MIDAS%20Winter%202025.pdf\">MIDAS release from RAJAR<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">First, a reminder that this uses a different methodology to the regular RAJAR release, based on a sample of 1,538 former RAJAR diarists who completed a 7-day online diary. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>96%<\/strong> of the population consume some kind of audio (that is not visualised) each week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Breaking this out by different forms of audio, we see that <strong>Live Radio<\/strong> is the biggest at <strong>86%<\/strong> listening each week. That&#8217;s followed by <strong>39% <\/strong>saying <strong>On Demand Music<\/strong> and <strong>26%<\/strong> saying <strong>Podcasts.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-4.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"947\" height=\"545\" src=\"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-4.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-79362\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-4.png 947w, https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-4-300x173.png 300w, https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-4-768x442.png 768w, https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-4-150x86.png 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 947px) 100vw, 947px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As the chart shows, there are variances depending on the age-group. For example, <strong>74% of 15-24s listen to Live Radio<\/strong> while <strong>57% of 15-24s listen to On Demand Music<\/strong>. The skew is in the other direction with the 55+ age group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It&#8217;s interesting to look at some of these figures over time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"769\" height=\"475\" seamless frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/spreadsheets\/d\/e\/2PACX-1vTcLxl-YMa1lq7tUQQDOOQivycMAb2gbxKXoCHbNOMiNC8rBa7hX6r17MWaKC5J_k5xlGl6oza9xeiW\/pubchart?oid=1613573968&amp;format=interactive\"><\/iframe><\/center>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Note that I&#8217;ve only looked at three types of audio here, because RAJAR has changed some of the other types of audio over time, and these are probably the three most relevant to compare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Obviously, while Radio has fallen a little, there has been significant growth in On Demand Music listening even over the past three years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">RAJAR defines &#8216;Connected Audio&#8217; as audio that requires internet connectivity \u2014 be it listening to live radio via a smart speaker, listening to podcasts or streaming music on Spotify.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-6.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"557\" height=\"640\" src=\"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-6.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-79365\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-6.png 557w, https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-6-261x300.png 261w, https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-6-150x172.png 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 557px) 100vw, 557px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is clear growth over time, both in the number of people listening, and to a large extent, the amount of listening they do. The slight fall in average hours this quarter feels like it might be an outlier, and will be worth looking at again next quarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The research also measures of the <strong>Share of Audio Listening by Age<\/strong> which is different to the reach above as it&#8217;s the actual amount of time spent listening to each type of audio. Notably, in the 15-24 age group, more <em>time<\/em> is spent listening to On Demand Music  than to Live Radio, even though more <em>people<\/em> listen to Live Radio in this age group. Radio remains the largest part of the audio landscape for every other age group.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-7.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"652\" src=\"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-7-1024x652.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-79366\" style=\"width:750px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-7-1024x652.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-7-300x191.png 300w, https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-7-768x489.png 768w, https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-7-150x96.png 150w, https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-7.png 1072w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That said, looking back to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/2025\/02\/rajar-midas-report-winter-2024\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"78971\">Winter 2024<\/a> release, in this same age group the numbers were 52% On Demand Music and 32% Live Radio. In retrospect, this feels like an outlier result. The overall trend displayed here feels more likely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The research shows that <strong>On Demand Music<\/strong> listening is still very much something consumed <strong>At Home<\/strong>, and primarily it&#8217;s <strong>a solitary activity<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-9baa9b4c wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:50%\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-8.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"874\" height=\"381\" src=\"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-8.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-79368\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-8.png 874w, https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-8-300x131.png 300w, https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-8-768x335.png 768w, https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-8-150x65.png 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 874px) 100vw, 874px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:50%\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-9.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"848\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-9.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-79369\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-9.png 848w, https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-9-300x133.png 300w, https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-9-768x340.png 768w, https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-9-150x66.png 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 848px) 100vw, 848px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Looking specifically at <strong>Podcasts<\/strong> the research shows that<strong> 26% <\/strong>of the population listen in an average week for a total of <strong>7.4 hours per person<\/strong>. 82% of the time listening to podcasts is spent alone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-10.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"684\" height=\"558\" src=\"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-10.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-79370\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-10.png 684w, https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-10-300x245.png 300w, https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-10-150x122.png 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 684px) 100vw, 684px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The survey suggest that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>66% of podcast listeners listen to 1-3 episodes a week<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>27% of podcast listeners listen to 4-10 episodes a week<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>8% of podcast listeners listen to 11+ episodes a week<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Meanwhile <strong>14% <\/strong>of podcast listeners say that they <strong>watch podcasts weekly<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Finally, here is listening against <strong>Time of Day<\/strong>. The breakfast peak for <strong>Live Radio<\/strong> remains 8:00-8:30am, but that&#8217;s <em>also<\/em> the peak for listening to <strong>Podcasts<\/strong> and listening to <strong>Catch-Up Radio<\/strong>.<strong> <\/strong>The peak for listening to <strong>On-Demand Music<\/strong> is from 2:00-2:30pm, although I&#8217;d note that it only just peaks then, and listening throughout daytime hours is strong. And post 10:00pm or so, everything is pretty close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/MIDAS-Winter-2025-25.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"842\" height=\"596\" src=\"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/MIDAS-Winter-2025-25.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-79371\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/MIDAS-Winter-2025-25.png 842w, https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/MIDAS-Winter-2025-25-300x212.png 300w, https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/MIDAS-Winter-2025-25-768x544.png 768w, https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/MIDAS-Winter-2025-25-150x106.png 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 842px) 100vw, 842px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rajar.co.uk\/docs\/news\/MIDAS%20Winter%202025.pdf\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.rajar.co.uk\/docs\/news\/MIDAS%20Winter%202025.pdf\">There are more findings in the full report.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Source: RAJAR\/MIDAS Winter 2025<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>MIDAS Winter 2025 fieldwork was carried out over two weeks in late November\/early December 2025 with a final sample of 1,538 former RAJAR participants aged 15+ who completed a 7-day online diary.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A couple of weeks after the regular RAJAR release, and we now have the most recent MIDAS release from RAJAR. First, a reminder that this uses a different methodology to the regular RAJAR release, based on a sample of 1,538 former RAJAR diarists who completed a 7-day online diary. 96% of the population consume some [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":79373,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-misc"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79361"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79374,"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79361\/revisions\/79374"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}