Some of the BBC’s major radio stations saw audiences rally amid of summer of sport and entertainment, but local radio shows have suffered a drop in listeners, figures show. Radio 5 Live recorded a strong jump in the last quarter, a period that coincided with the Paris Olympics and Euro 2024, with its average weekly audience up 12% from 5.4 million in April to June to 6 million in July to September this year, according to data from research body Rajar.
The station, which is in its 30th anniversary year and mixes news stories and sporting events, also saw a 13% increase on the last quarter for its breakfast show’s weekly audience, with figures rising from 1.4 million to 1.6 million.
Elsewhere, Radio 3 and Radio 4 both saw a July to September increase compared with the previous three months, by 11% for Radio 3 (to 2 million) and 8% for Radio 4 (9.7 million). The increase in Radio 5 Live’s listening figures have been party attributed to Euro 2024 (Gareth Fuller/PA) Amid the summer success, the BBC saw further decline in the number of people listening to local and regional services.
The average weekly audience for these stations was 6.8 million in July to September, down from 7.3 million 12 months earlier and a drop of more than two million since July to September 2021, when the figure was 9.
2 million. In its annual report for 2023/24, the BBC said efforts to increase the depth and volume of local news stories online had seen an “increase in the size of audiences consuming.
