LONDON: Britons are enthusiastically converting to the clarity of digital radio, according to the latest audience figures from industry body RAJAR (Radio Joint Audience Research). Its third quarter numbers show a 17 million rise in digital listening hours since June.
The survey also reveals that 15% of all radio listening is now via the digital platform, up from 12.8% in Q2, 2007.
Most digital listeners do so via DAB (digital audio broadcast) sets, but digital TV and mobile phones are also growing in popularity for radio listening.
Overall radio listening has remained steady year-on-year and currently stands at 89% of the UK population (44.9m listeners) for Q3.
However, the number of adults (aged 15+) tuning-in during the summer months decreased slightly, down 760,000 quarter-on-quarter from 45.6m in Q2.
The publicly-funded BBC saw its audience share rise marginally 0.1% from the previous quarter; and for the year earlier period, reaching 54.4%.
Commercial radio's share slipped to 43.4%, down year-on-year by 0.3%. National commercial radio fared better than its local counterpart.
Data sourced from RAJAR and Brand Republic (UK); additional content by WARC staff
