Talk radio has never had it so good after an unlikely combination of government cuts, England's cricket tour of Australia, snow and the ever-enduring popularity of Premier League football propelled BBC Radio 5 Live and TalkSport to record audiences in the final three months of 2010. The two stations had a combined weekly audience of more than 10 million listeners in the fourth quarter of last year, according to official Rajar figures published today.
So sport is clearly a catalyst for talk radio but actually all the BBC national stations have improved their figures in this quarter....
Every one of the BBC's 12 national radio stations, including the BBC World Service, added listeners year on year. BBC Radio 3 was the biggest riser, up 18.2% to 2.216 million. BBC Radio 2 remained the nation's favourite station by some distance, up 3.5% to 13.943 million listeners, a 16.2% share of the audience, while BBC Radio 4 was up 4.9% on the year to 10.319 million, a 12.1% share. Radio 5 Live had its biggest-ever audience of 7.093 million listeners, up 16.2% on the same quarter in 2009. Not quite such good news at BBC Radio 1, which added listeners, up 6.1% year on year to 11.421 million, but saw its share of the audience fall to 8.8% – down from 9.8% a year ago – as people tuned in for less time.
However the digital stations haven't done so well....
BBC 6 Music, saved from the axe by the BBC Trust last year, was up 63.6% the final three months of 2009 to 1.137 million listeners, but its audience fell back from the previous quarter's record of 1.196 million. Digital sister station BBC Radio 7, which is due to be rebranded as BBC Radio 4 Extra, also saw its audience fall back on the previous quarter, down 10% to 941,000.
The BBC's total share of the audience was 55.3%, stretching its lead over commercial radio to 12.8%, up from 10.8% the previous quarter.
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