When we look at the recently released RAJAR report, detailing the radio listening habits in the UK, we see continued strong attachment to radio listening. In the 4th quarter of 2023, 88% of the population tuned into radio every week. That is 1% below the metric for 2022.
On average, listeners tuned into over 20 hours of live radio per week.
Turning to Digital radio, RAJAR observes that 76% of the population tuned in to streaming radio every week. that equates to 43 million adults aged 15 or older. In this report, Digital radio listening includes DAB, DTV, listening apps, and smart speakers.
Digging into the platform share metrics of all radio listening, RAJAR shows us the chart below.
Broadening Beyond radio, RAJAR looks at monthly listening to podcasts and what it calls catch-up radio. In the chart below we might presume that the Catch Up category includes podcasts to some extent, depending on one’s definition of podcast.
This report does not measure the extent of smart speaker ownership in the uk, but it does look at smart speaker usage. in that view, we see 63% of smart speaker users claim to use it for listening to the radio. and 1/3 of those people claim to do so everyday.
RAJAR stands for Radio Joint Audience Research and is the official body in charge of measuring radio audiences in the UK. It is jointly owned by the BBC and the Radiocentre on behalf of the commercial sector.
