News Broadcasting remains the most digital broadcasting group in the UK, reporting a record 6.7m listeners tuning in for 42.9m hours weekly - up 12% in reach and 7% in hours quarter-on-quarter*

Thursday 18 May 2023: The latest round of RAJAR results - for the survey period ending 2nd April 2023 - sees News Broadcasting’s portfolio of radio stations, including national brands talkSPORT, Virgin Radio UK, TalkRadio and Times Radio, as well as U105 in Northern Ireland, report a record in both reach and hours: with 6.7m listeners tuning in for 42.9m hours weekly. 

News UK EVP, President of Broadcasting, Scott Taunton, said: “This double record for News Broadcasting - with more listeners, listening for more hours a week than ever in our history - speaks to the world-class broadcasting talent that delivers our national roster of stations, including talkSPORT, Virgin Radio, TalkRadio and Times Radio, as well as U105 in Northern Ireland.

“News Broadcasting is the UK’s most digital broadcasting group, with 86% of hours from digital, 38% from streaming. This positions us brilliantly for continued digital audience growth and to build out a clear path to sustainable digital revenue growth. Both talkSPORT and TalkRadio deliver record reach in the period - a testament to the talented teams under News Broadcasting Director of Audio Dennie Morris. And the Talk brand - on TV, streaming services, online and on the app now reaches more people than ever on radio.”

The talkSPORT network - including talkSPORT2 - reached 3.6m listeners, listening for 20.3m hours - up 13.4% quarter-on-quarter and 7% quarter-on-quarter respectively. talkSPORT now also reaches a record ABC1 audience. The reporting period saw the network cover a series of marquee Premier League fixtures, unmissable boxing events and exclusive international cricket.  

talkSPORT remains the destination for live football fans, covering over 450 live football matches across all competitions including Premier League, FIFA World Cup and Women’s Super League by the end of the season. The network is home to the cream of sports broadcasters, including Laura Woods, Alan Brazil, Ally McCoist, Jim White, Simon Jordan, Hawksbee & Jacobs, Adrian Durham, Hugh Woozencroft and Natalie Sawyer alongside pundits such as Stuart Pearce, Lianne Sanderson and Gabby Agbonlohoar.

The network covered explosive news from the world of sport over the past quarter, including a sequence of dramatic Premier League management sackings: from Frank Lampard at Everton, to Jesse Marsch at Leeds United and Antonio Conte at Tottenham. It carried marquee Premier League fixtures including the Manchester Derby (14th Jan); Liverpool v Chelsea (21st Jan) and Liverpool v Everton (13th Feb). The network also played host to boxing clashes including Anthony Joshua's comeback against Jermain Franklin and the intriguing clash as Jake Paul took on Tommy Fury, while making news of its own with Eddie Hearn's on-air showdown with Simon Jordan in March. It also carried exclusive international cricket including England's ODI series v South Africa, their Test series v New Zealand and ODI/T20 series v Bangladesh. 

In the weeks ahead the team will provide must-listen coverage of the dramatic conclusion to the football season; alongside commentary of England and Republic of Ireland's matches in the upcoming FIFA Women's World Cup, plus the much anticipated Chris Eubank Jr's rematch with Liam Smith. 

The Virgin Radio UK network, which includes Virgin Radio UK, Virgin Radio Anthems UK, Virgin Radio Chilled UK and Virgin Radio 80s Plus UK, reached 2.1m listeners, up 8.4% quarter-on-quarter, with 11.6m weekly listening hours, up 5.5% quarter-on-quarter. 

Chris Evans, Graham Norton and Ricky Wilson all saw quarter-on-quarter growth in reach on Virgin Radio UK. The station announced in January that The Chris Evans Breakfast Show has a new sponsor: cinch, the online used car marketplace. The partnership sees cinch as the sole sponsor of the show, while Graham Norton at the Weekends continues to be sponsored by Waitrose & Partners. The shows have played  host to an incredible cast list of celebrities in the period, including Brendan Fraser, Shania Twain, Simon Pegg, Paris Hilton, Whoopi Goldberg, Aidan Turner and Sam Neill. 

Meanwhile Kaiser Chiefs frontman, rock star Ricky Wilson joined the weekday line up on Virgin Radio in January, from 4-7pm and has already delivered record reach for that slot. He further bolsters a line up that saw Jayne Middlemiss start broadcasting on the station in the 1-4pm slot last Autumn. 

Virgin Radio 80s Plus launched last September as the perfect accompaniment to the Virgin Radio network, and guests and presenters in the new reporting period included Clare Grogan, Matt Goss, Su Pollard, Belinda Carlisle, John Parr and Sinitta. The award-winning pop-up station Virgin Radio Pride will also return for three months from 1st June. 

News and opinion station TalkRadio delivers another record-breaking performance, with a record reach of 840k listeners, up 38.2% quarter-on-quarter, with listening hours at 5.7m hours each week, up 20.9% quarter-on-quarter. In the year since TalkTV launched (April 2022) TalkRadio has grown reach by 29%.

The weekday lineup includes Julia Hartley-Brewer, Mike Graham, Ian Collins, Vanessa Feltz, Jeremy Kyle, Piers Morgan Uncensored, panel show The Talk featuring Sharon Osbourne and First Edition with Tom Newton Dunn. Julia, Mike, Ian and Vanessa all delivered record reach in their slots. 

TalkRadio continues to deliver breaking news, straight-talking opinions and the best guests, nationally and internationally, while Piers Morgan’s recent world-exclusive interviews with Stormy Daniels, Benjamin Netanyahu and Ron DeSantis have driven over one million subscribers to the show’s YouTube channel. 

The continued growth in radio listeners comes as the Talk schedule finds news audiences, simulcasting on Sky Channel 522, Virgin Media Channel 606, Freeview Channel 237 and Freesat Channel 217 as well as Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Samsung TV Plus, YouTube, the Talk.TV website and TalkTV iOS and Android apps. January also saw Talk become the exclusive provider of national programming across Local TV’s network of channels, available on Freeview Channels 7 & 8, Virgin Media Channel 159, online and social media in Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Leeds, Liverpool, North Wales, Teesside and Tyne & Wear. 

Times Radio posts reach of 554k with weekly listening hours of 3.5m, up 2.5% quarter-on-quarter. 75% of Times Radio’s audience are now in the hard-to-reach ABC1 category, making Times Radio the #1 station for ABC1 profile and #1 for AB profile in the commercial sector.

The station set a new record for the length of time that people tune in, with listeners staying with Times Radio for an average 6.3 hours a week.

Listeners come to Times Radio as a trusted resource to understand national and world events, with its peerless roster of broadcasters including Aasmah Mir, Stig Abell, Matt Chorley, Mariella Frostrup, Jane Garvey, Fi Glover, John Pienaar, Kait Borsay and Carole Walker broadcasting during recent dramatic events, including Jeremy Hunt’s back-to-work Budget, the search for Nicola Bulley and the controversy over the leak of Matt Hancock’s WhatsApps. Times Radio's YouTube channel reached over 350,000 subscribers, with more video views in the first five months of this year than in all of 2022 put together.

U105 is celebrating after recording its joint highest-ever weekly reach. The Belfast-based station broke the quarter of a million barrier again, with 256k listeners each week, up 11% on the same period last year, listening for 1.7m hours.

* All data is based on six monthly weighting.