Commercial radio still growing in Rajar audit.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)

Commercial radio is continuing to grow its number of listeners but this growth has slowed, according to the latest Rajar figures.

An average weekly audience of 32.07 million listened to commercial radio between July and September, up from 31.14 million year on year. However, the year-on-year growth of just over 1 per cent is well below the growth of 2 per cent posted last quarter and, quarter on quarter, commercial radio reach is down by 1 percent.

Stations seeing increases in listeners included Classic FM, Heart 106.2 FM, talkSPORT and Jazz FM. Atlantic 252, however, suffered a year-on-year drop in reach of 21.6 per cent, down to 1.23 million.

Classic FM posted one of the most significant increases in listeners, adding more than 400,000 to move up to 6.43 million. In the process its share of total radio listening was up by 1 per cent to 4.3 per cent. Jazz FM increased its reach by 8 per cent to 963,000. TalkSPORT added 200,000 listeners to gain a total reach of 2.2 million.

In London, the battle for listeners intensified with Heart 106.2 FM and Emap's Kiss and Magic offering strong challenges to Capital 95.8 FM, which also increased its reach slightly. Virgin also had a better Rajar with Steve Penk, who replaced Chris Evans as presenter of the Breakfast Show earlier this year, adding 300,000 listeners to take his audience to two million. Evans' audience had slipped to 1.7 million in the weeks before his ...