The last RAJAR* to be published this year covers the period up to the 14th of September, and it seems that the summer has not been so sunny for local stations’ listening figures with losses for all in reach year-on-year.
Cool FM remains top for reach, attracting 456,000 weekly listeners each week (was 503,000). Total hours are now 3,888,000 (were 4,302,000) and share is 13.6 (was 13.7).
BBC Radio Ulster/Foyle just squeezes ahead to take the lead position for total hours, but these have decreased markedly from 5,430,000 to 3,992,000, with share down from 17.3 to 14.0. Reach also went down from 462,000 to 358,000.
Q Radio saw a significant growth in hours (from 1,856,000 to 2,387,000) and share (5.9 to 8.4), but reach dropped from 344,000 to 302,000.
Downtown declined in reach and hours (289,000 to 262,000 listeners and 2,670,000 to 2,443,000 hours) while increasing in share from 8.5 to 8.6. Downtown Country was down in reach (119,000 to 115,000), but up in both hours (1,011,000 to 1,147,000) and share (3.2 to 4.0).
U105 lost reach in Greater Belfast (200,000 to 187,000) with hours and share being 1,950,000 hours (were 2,288,000) and 11.0 (was 11.8). Reach in the DAB-only area increased from 28,000 to 30,000, as did share from 1.2 to 1.7.
The share of total listening hours for the local stations above combined is 56%; this time last year it also stood at 56%, so the falling tide is in Radio overall and is lowering all ships.
Turning lastly to the hybrid stations, Greatest Hits Radio NI reached 58,000 listeners compared to 72,000 a year ago, and Hits Radio NI had 25,000 listeners (was 11,000).
Each station is quoted within its own Total Survey Area.
*RAJAR is compiled by Ipsos-MORI
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