Commercial radio hits new high as Amanda Holden and Nick Ferrari boost numbers
Commercial radio giant Global – owner of Capital, Heart and LBC – has reeled in 26.4m weekly listeners over the last quarter in what was a bumper three months for commercial radio.
Private sector stations, forced to compete with the licence-fee funded BBC, saw overall weekly listeners top 39.3m, a new record.
The figures are compiled by RAJAR.
Heart Breakfast with Amanda Holden and Jamie Theakston remains the UK biggest commercial radio show with 3.8m weekly listeners, whilst LBC’s Nick Ferrari show enjoys 1.3m listeners and is the number one commercial breakfast show for reach, hours and share in the capital.
Global’s Ashley Tabor-King said the numbers made him proud to have played his part in ‘reinvigorating’ the commercial radio market.
“It’s just brilliant to see it happening, and continuing to grow and grow, with record audiences for both the sector and some of our brands, bringing listeners more of what they love,” he said.
News Broadcasting – the radio and TV division of NewsUK – also saw increases, with TalkRadio’s weekly listening hours up 18 per cent year on year.
Times Radio, meanwhile, upped its weekly reach to half a million people as it continues to squeeze BBC Radio 4.
The Today programme, the BBC’s flagship news broadcast, has a weekly reach of around 5.8m, though that has fallen by around 800,000 since last year.