London, Thursday 1st August 2024: News Broadcasting breaks more records in the latest round of RAJAR results - for the survey period ending 23 June 2024. The group, including national brands talkSPORT, Virgin Radio UK, Talk and Times Radio, as well as U105 in Northern Ireland, deliver best-ever weekly reach up an impressive 7.0% year-on-year to 6.8m, with listening hours up 4.2% year-on-year to 45.9m.

News UK EVP, President of Broadcasting, Scott Taunton, said: “These new results represent the eighth quarter of record hours for our national brands! News Broadcasting continues to set the pace in the digital space, demonstrating the brilliance of our brands in engaging more and more people, for longer, across more platforms than ever. Special shout out to the talkSPORT team: these results recognise they are, hands down, the destination for live sport and livelier opinion.

“Our digital-first growth strategy is well on track. Beyond these RAJAR results it’s worth noting that video content from News Broadcasting brands was viewed 58.6m times across Facebook and YouTube in June, far more than any other radio group. Our talented teams - on and off air - will continue to drive that innovation and growth.”

Covering an immensely exciting period of football, including the first 10 days of the Euros, as well as the Premier League season climax, the UEFA Champions League, FA Cup and EFL Play-Off finals and Jürgen Klopp’s goodbye from Liverpool, the talkSPORT network delivered a reach of 3.7m listeners, an increase of 9.0% year-on-year, listening for 24.0m hours - up 10.2% year-on-year. talkSPORT, talkSPORT2 and the talkSPORT network as a whole all deliver another record reach in the period, and talkSPORT now delivers commercial partners a record ABC1 audience.

Over the next week and a half, talkSPORT will continue to bring listeners all the excitement of the 2024 Olympics, for the first time on commercial radio, with iconic Olympians Dame Kelly Holmes, Tessa Sanderson, Sir Steve Redgrave and Adam Gemili broadcasting live from Paris. In August, talkSPORT will have all the action covered as the new English Football League and Premier League seasons kick off.

The Chris Evans Breakfast Show with webuyanycar played host to some of the biggest stars of Film and TV including Jonathan Bailey, David Tennant, Brian Cox, Dominic West, Sam Rockwell and Rebel Wilson, as well as comedians Jimmy Carr and Eddie Izzard. National treasures Lenny Henry, John Cleese and Shirley Ballas also popped in for a chat with Chris, with Crowded House and Mark Ambor treating listeners to live performances. 

With the weekday mid-morning Ryan Tubridy Show now in full swing and the new weekend line up of Angela Scanlon, Leigh Francis, Tom Allen, and Dick & Dom, 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 2.2m listeners, an increase of 11.2% year-on-year, with listening hours across the network of 11.1m. 

The Virgin Radio UK network has one of the highest ABC1 profiles in commercial radio and saw its website’s page views for that period up 83% year-on-year.

News and opinion station Talk had another solid period, with reach at 690k and weekly listening hours at 4.7m. Returning to the 17th floor studios at The News Building, Talk’s updated editorial focus is supercharging the brand’s successes, with its YouTube channel recently hitting the one million subscriber mark. 

Times Radio saw a reach of 478k with weekly listening hours of 4.2m, meaning these hard-to-reach affluent listeners are highly engaged, listening for an average 8.9 hours each week. Across the quarter, the Election Station covered Rishi Sunak calling the nation to the polls, Nigel Farage announcing his candidacy, local and mayoral elections in May and Humza Yousaf’s resignation as First Minister of Scotland. From the start of June listeners were treated to the analysis of broadcasting powerhouse Andrew Neil, who will be back on air in September covering the American Presidential race.   

U105 grew its total and average hours quarter on quarter, both in the core Belfast area and across Northern Ireland. With a weekly reach of 215k, the station has average hours of 9.3 across Northern Ireland, with that average rising to 10.2 hours in greater Belfast. These extended hours include coverage of the return of Stormont and the build-up to the Westmister election.

ENDS

* Views for a minimum of 30 Seconds. Data provided by Tubular Labs.Radio groups analysed: News Broadcasting, BBC Radio and Music, This is Global and Bauer Media Group