Radio 4 Extra overtakes 6 Music with record listeners
21 May 2015
From the section Entertainment & Arts
Radio 4 Extra broadcasts classic comedy shows such as Morecambe and Wise along with new speech programmes including Newsjack and TED Radio Hour
BBC Radio 4 Extra has overtaken BBC 6 Music to become the UK’s biggest digital-only station, according to the latest audience figures from Rajar.
Archive classics like Morecambe and Wise and Dad’s Army helped Radio 4’s sister station achieve record listeners of 2.17 million a week – an increase of half a million on the last quarter.
6 Music maintained its record audience with 2.06 million listeners.
Radio 2 is the most popular UK station with 15.09 million tuning in weekly.
BBC Radio 1 shed more than 700,000 listeners with 9.7 million, down from 10.43 million last quarter. The station said more than half a million of these were older.
“Since Radio 1 has been completely focused on younger audiences – and the most common age of a Radio 1 listener is 21 – it was highly likely some older listeners would move on, like the half a million over-30s that left us this quarter,” said Radio 1 controller, Ben Cooper.
‘Timeless’
Radio 4 Extra airs comedy and drama from the BBC archive alongside new speech programmes like TED Radio Hour, Comedy Club and Newsjack.
Its recent successes include the decision to broadcast hit US podcast Serial at the end of last year.
“Radio 4 Extra was once a hidden gem in the BBC Radio portfolio,” said director of BBC Radio Helen Boaden.
“These figures show the power of the BBC audio archive. Radio 4 Extra was created to make better use of Radio 4’s incredible back catalogue and today’s statistics show that brilliantly-made, high quality comedy and drama …read more
Source:: BBC Entertainment
