Digital Radio Listeners Boom

August 3, 2006 - UK radio audience quarterly data, compiled by RAJAR (Radio Joint Audience Research) has revealed that the potential digital radio audience has grown to 54% of UK population and listening hours via a digital platform has increased to 13.6%. Radio listening via DAB, Internet and DTV continues to rise.

90% of the UK population listens to the radio, which is almost 44.6 million listeners tuning in each week. The report shows that the number of adults (age 15+) who claim to own a DAB set or have listened to the radio via digital television (DTV) or the Internet, has increased from 25.5 million adults last quarter (Q1, 2006) to 27.1 million adults (Q2, 2006) or 54.3%. This group constitutes the potential digital radio audience.

Furthermore, 15.3% of the UK adult population (15+) are now living in households which have a DAB receiver, up 12.5% from 13.6% (Q1, 2006). Listening via the Internet has increased by 9.6%, up from 20.8% (Q1, 2006) to 22.8% (Q2, 2006) and listening via DTV has grown by 6.6%, up from 36.5% (Q1, 2006) to 38.9% (Q2, 2006).

Mobile phones are proving increasingly popular as a means of listening to radio, especially for young adults. 3.5 million adults (9.7% of mobile phone owners) now claim to listen to the radio via their mobile phones and this percentage increases to over a fifth (21.7%) of mobile phone owners aged 15-24 (1.4 million).

New research into radio listening via downloaded radio programme podcasts, undertaken for the first time by RAJAR this quarter (Q2, 2006), reveals that 1.9 million adults (15+) or 14.8% of mp3 player owners are now listening to radio in this way.

(This weekly reach figure is the number of people (adults 15+) in the UK who listened to a radio station for at least five minutes in the course of an average week during the quarter)

Visit www.rajar.co.uk for more information

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