Radio by numbers

No enormous swings for BBC radio output in the latest quarterly listening figures, covering January, February and March. 

Reach for Radio 2 and Radio 3 was down 4% year on year - though Radio 3 Unwind may have taken some ears away from the mothership; it reached 388,000 in its first full quarter of figures. Classic FM fell 8% year on year.  In 'talk', Radio 4 and Radio 5Live were a tad down, 1.9% and 0.4% respectively. LBC was up 8.7% to 2.9m, a record. Times Radio fell 2.9% year on year. 

BBC Local Radio in England will welcome a fall of just 0.46% year on year; Radio Scotland was up 11%, but Radio Cymru was down 6%, and Radio Wales 8.5%.  Radio Ulster was down 8.7%. 

The press release for Sounds has them beating all sorts of records; but 65% of listening hours is to 'live radio'.  We note that Newshour from the World Service ranks No 4 in the BBC's worldwide podcast rankings; presumably BBC Studios will re-invested some of the consequent advertising revenue in preventing the unpleasant and unnecessary changes to the production team's rota.