Commercial radio stations record biggest audience numbers ever

Commercial radio stations create a combined audience of 37 million in Q1 2022

Commercial radio racked up record audience figures during the first quarter of 2022. According to the latest figures from RAJAR, the official body in charge of measuring radio audiences in the UK, commercial radio station audience figures exceeded 37 million – three million more than the total audience for BBC radio.

"Commercial radio audiences are booming. Listening has soared to record levels and now commercial radio has more than 3 million more listeners than the BBC,” said radio consultant Paul Chantler. “These figures show just how important commercial radio is in people's lives," he added.

Commercial radio’s share of listening time also marginally increased to 48.4% in Q1 – up 0.4 points from the last quarter of 2021. RAJAR figures also illustrated a growing interest in talk show formats, with Times Radio, LBC, TalkRadio and talkSport all registering strong audience figures in the first three months of the year.

Total digital listening now sits at 67.9% of all radio listening, with DAB accounting for 41% of the audience base. Online listening had also grown to a new high of 22.4% on average.

Overall’s RAJAR’s latest figures estimate that 89% of the UK population, aged fifteen and above, tunes into radio each week in the first quarter of 2022. The total average number of weekly hours listened to over Q1 was 1.012 billion!