More than 50 per cent of all radio listening in the home is on a digital platform, according to the latest Rajar Q1 figures announced this week.
The data showed that digital radio listening has sustained its long-term growth to reach a new high of 44.1 per cent.
There was growth across all digital platforms, with DAB growing its share of listening to 30.9 per cent and now accounting for over 70 per cent of total digital listening.
Ownership of a DAB digital radio increased to 55.7 per cent of the population, with 30 million adults now claiming to own a DAB radio – an increase of 14 per cent year on year.
Online’s share of listening grew to 7.8 per cent and accounts for 18 per cent of digital listening, while digital TV share of listening grew to 5.4 per cent to account for 12 per cent of digital listening.
Digital listening in-car grew by 32.5 per cent to 21.2 per cent of all listening (from 16 per cent in Q1 2015), boosted by growth in new cars being fitted with digital radio as standard to over 80 per cent in Q1 2016.
Said Ford Ennals (pictured), chief executive of Digital Radio UK: “What shines through this new listening data is the continuing and unstoppable shift to digital listening. We have seen record quarters for leading BBC and commercial digital-only stations BBC 6 Music and Absolute 80s, with digital listening on the BBC’s iconic stations Radio 3 and Radio 4 rising towards 50 per cent. With the listening benefits of the 16 new digital-only stations launched in March still to come later this year, we can see a clear path through to the majority of listening being digital.”
