Global Radio and Boom celebrate increase in listening figures

The UK’s biggest commercial radio company Global celebrates its best-ever audience results, growing its audience to a record-breaking 25.8m weekly listeners and its share to 24%. 

Heart, LBC, Radio X and Smooth score record audiences with listening figures at an all-time high and Capital Dance more than doubles its audience to 592,000 in just three months.

LBC’s uninterrupted growth continues as the UK’s number one commercial talk brand breaks its eighth consecutive RAJAR record, with a new audience high of 3.2m weekly listeners. LBC, which sees Andrew Marr join later this year, celebrates the highest reach in its 49-year history, welcoming 151,000 new listeners in the past three months alone. A busy news agenda over the last quarter meant more people are tuning in than ever before as the station cements its role as the voice of the nation.

Heart – the UK’s biggest commercial radio brand – celebrates its highest ever listening figures, for the second consecutive quarter with 10.3m listeners now tuning in each week – over 2m more listeners than Radio 1.

The UK’s biggest commercial radio brand continues to grow in reach, hours and share and welcomes nearly a quarter of a million new listeners as the nation tuned in for a festive feel-good fix in the run up to Christmas. Heart Breakfast with Jamie Theakston & Amanda continues its reign as the UK’s biggest commercial radio show and commercial breakfast show with a massive 3.9m listeners tuning in every week.

Radio X smashes through the 2m mark for the first time ever, adding 166,000 new listeners and growing in reach, hours and share. The Chris Moyles Show on Radio X sets a new audience record, with Chris growing his audience at Breakfast by a massive 93,000 new listeners in the past three months alone, now reaching 1.2m listeners, and extending his lead over Virgin Radio at Breakfast.

Johnny Vaughan also celebrates record listening figures, with 974,000 tuning into his Radio X drive show each week, and Toby Tarrant also smashes a new record with 991,000listeners tuning in on weekday mornings.

Global also has the top 3 commercial radio brands in the UK – Heart, Capital and Smooth – and the top two commercial breakfast shows in the UK – Heart Breakfast with Jamie Theakston & Amanda Holden (3.9m)and Capital Breakfast with Roman Kemp (2.6m).

Capital remains the UK’s no.1 hit music brand with 7.6m weekly listeners across the UK, extending its reach over the Kiss brand nationally with over 3m more listeners tuning in every week. Capital Dance, which launched in October 2020 with dance music legend MistaJam at the helm, has more than doubled its audience in the past three months alone, now reaching 592,000 listeners each week. In London, Capital remains the No.1 hit music station with 1.7m weekly listeners, ahead of both Radio 1 and Kiss in the nation’s capital.

At the other end of the scale, the UK’s newest and smallest operator, Boom Radio, has also seen a moderate increase in listeners, since the last figures. The station is up 9,000 listeners from the previous RAJAR release of 233,000 to 242,000. Average hours listed to Boom are also up from 7.8 to 10.1 and total hours up from 1.81m to 2.45m. It also has the loyalist audience. It appears more and more ‘boomers’ have become disillusioned with BBC Radio 2, which seems to be turning into ‘Radio 1 for 30-somethings‘ with the same bland formats and no variety in the type of ‘DJ’s’ replacing the well-known personalities.

The latest casualty in the ever chasing a younger audience at Radio 2 has seen Paul O’Grady’s show, Sunday’s 5-7 pm, chopped down to half a year – airing in two three month batches instead of his full year-round run. The gap will be filled by Rob Beckett. Disgruntled R2 listeners may be happy to discover Sunday’s from 5-7 pm on Boom Radio are hosted by former Pebble Mill presenter, ITV continuity announcer – with WestWard Television and TSW in the South West – and local BBC radio personality Judi Spires.

*RAJAR figures for 2021 Q4 20th September 2021 – 19th December 2021. All stations and groups results are reported on their specified reporting period and TSA (Total Survey Area).