UK weekly radio listening edges upward in Q1 on various devices (RAJAR)

The weekly reach of radio listening in the UK is traditionally strong, and the Q1 RAJAR (Radio Joint Audience Research) report shows a surge for the first quarter. Fifty million adults — 89% of the 15+ population, tuned in each week, for a total time-spent metric of 1.023 billion hours.

The reach number is a lift above the last five quarterly reports. A higher number was achieved in Q4, 2022.

The average listener tunes into 20.5 hours of live radio per week.

This all sounds pretty analog, but 77% of the UK population (44 million adults) use digital platforms to tune in. Looking at digital platforms more broadly, RAJAR finds that 73% of listening hours are consumed digitally (with DAB, the UK’s digital radio format, leading the way) and 28% are consumed online:

Rajar counts up the actual hours in addition to the percentages above, and finds 746 million weekly hours spent in digital listening. DAB owns the biggest slice of that metric, with smart speakers also representing a substantial share:

ON the “where?” question, home, car, and work are the three answers, with at-home listening grabbing 62% of share.

Sixty-three percent of listeners use smart speakers for radio, and about a third of those do it every day.

Rajar includes a single data point about podcasting, and it is this: 33% of UK listeners consume podcasts at least monthly.

There’s more, in the traditional RAJAR infographic — it is HERE.

Brad Hill