New record low for Classic FM as BBC Radio 3 gains new listeners
There are new record lows for Classic FM and Scala Radio, and BBC Radio 3 listeners are up, according to new figures from RAJAR (Radio Join Audience Research). Released today, the figures cover the first quarter of 2024.
Classic FM has lost 249,000 listeners from December 2024, falling 5.3% to 4.44 million. Launched in 1992, the RAJAR website lists quarterly listening figures on their website from 1999. This is Classic FM’s smallest audience in those 23 years.
There is now an overall trend of decline for Classic FM, having posted record lows for eight of the last 11 quarters, including dropping under 5 million listeners for the first time. Classic FM has lost over 1 million listeners from its pre-pandemic audience of 5.48 million in March 2020, a drop of 19.0%.
(RAJAR did not report quarterly figures between March 2020 and September 2021 due to the pandemic).
BBC Radio 3 has gained 220,000 listeners since December 2023, an increase of 12.4% to just under 2 million.
BBC Radio 3’s audience has historically fluctuated between 1.7 million and 2.1 million. This quarter sees BBC Radio 3’s audience grow 15,00 since the start of the pandemic, an increase of 0.76%.
Scala Radio fell 11,000, from 199,000 to 188,000, a decrease of 5.5%. It has lost over a third of its audience from before the pandemic, dropping 39.4% from 310,000 before the pandemic. Scala Radio has now posted loses for 9 consecutive quarters.
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