Radio listening in UK hits 20-year high according to a recent report by Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator. Their annual report – Media Nations 2024: UK covers all aspects of TV, video and music streaming, radio and podcasts.
The first quarter of 2024 saw the highest number of weekly radio listeners across all devices in the past twenty years with an average of 49.9 million adults (88.6%) listening each week, passing the previous high of 49.7 million in Q1 2022. Average listening time was 20.5 hours per week in Q1 2024, up by six minutes year on year; not only are more people tuning in, but they are listening for longer across the week.
Much of this growth is down to commercial radio’s continued success in attracting new audiences and increasing its average hours per listener. Just over seven in 10 people aged 15+ tune into commercial stations at least once a week (70.4%) compared to 55.6% for BBC stations. Commercial radio revenue continued to grow in 2023, up 2% overall to £667m.
After live radio, the next most popular type of audio is streamed music from services such as Spotify, Apple, and Amazon, with half of us listening to these services at least once a week (50%). The proportion of adults listening to podcasts each week has almost doubled in the past five years to one in every five.
Online radio listening continues to grow steadily, overtaking analogue radio (AM/FM) for the first time this year and now accounting for over a quarter (28%) of all live radio hours, mostly through smart speakers.
The full 74-page report is freely available to download here.
