The Rajar Quarterly Summary of Radio Listening for Q4 2025 — covering Sept. 30 to Dec. 15, 2025 — shows a radio market in the United Kingdom that remains broadly stable in overall reach, while revealing more apparent differences in performance between major broadcast groups and brands.
According to the audited data, radio reached around 50 million adults age 15 and over each week, with total listening again exceeding one billion hours per week. Beneath that headline stability, however, Q4 showed more pronounced shifts in how listening was distributed between public and commercial broadcasters, as well as among the most significant commercial portfolios.
Weekly reach remained close to nine in 10 adults, broadly in line with Q3 2025. Digital listening — including DAB, online streaming, apps and smart speakers — continued to account for the majority of listening hours, reinforcing the structural shift away from analog-only consumption.
Listening at home remained the dominant location, while in-car listening continued to be shaped by connected dashboards and the availability of digital radio. These platform trends continued from Q3 rather than showing an abrupt change.
BBC radio remains resilient across flagship services
The BBC continued to deliver substantial reach across its national services in Q4, maintaining its position as a central pillar of the U.K. radio landscape.
BBC Radio 2 remained the single largest station in the market by weekly reach, attracting nearly 13 million listeners, broadly consistent with its Q3 performance. BBC Radio 4 continued to reach around 9 million adults weekly, while BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 5 Live both sustained multi-million weekly audiences.
At a group level, BBC Radio’s overall reach and share remained relatively stable quarter on quarter. This result stood out in a market where several commercial portfolios experienced more visible movement. The figures suggest that the BBC’s mix of music, speech and news programming continues to anchor listening, particularly among older demographics.
Global holds scale but shows signs of softening
Global remained the largest commercial radio group in Q4, with its portfolio — including Heart, Capital and Classic FM — reaching around 29 million adults weekly.
Heart remained Global’s largest brand, with a weekly reach of over 12 million, while Capital and Classic FM both maintained strong national audiences. Compared with Q3 2025, however, Global’s aggregate reach and listening hours contracted modestly, making it one of the more closely watched developments of the quarter.
While the movement was not dramatic in absolute terms, the quarter-on-quarter easing attracted industry attention because it followed a period of sustained growth across Global’s national brands earlier in the year.
Bauer Media shows renewed momentum
Bauer Media emerged from Q4 as one of the more positive commercial stories in the data. Bauer’s portfolio — led by Greatest Hits Radio, Magic and Absolute Radio — reached more than 22 million adults weekly, representing an apparent increase on Q3 2025. Greatest Hits Radio remained the group’s largest service, with a weekly reach of around six million, continuing its role as a major driver of listening within the Bauer portfolio.
The quarter-on-quarter uplift reinforced Bauer’s strategy of combining national brands with regionally rooted services, particularly as Greatest Hits Radio continues to absorb legacy audiences from heritage local stations.
News Broadcasting and Virgin Radio
News Broadcasting continued to post stable results across its talk and sports brands. talkSPORT again reached around three million adults weekly, maintaining its position as the largest commercial speech-led station in the U.K. talkSPORT2 and Times Radio delivered smaller but consistent audiences, with Times Radio reaching around half a million listeners weekly.
Compared with Q3, performance across the News Broadcasting portfolio was essentially flat, a result likely to be read as resilience rather than expansion in an increasingly competitive spoken-word audio market.
The Virgin Radio network within News Broadcasting recorded a combined weekly reach of approximately 1.9 million adults in Q4. The core Virgin Radio service reached around 1.1 million, with Virgin Radio Legends, Virgin Radio Chilled and Virgin Radio 80s contributing additional reach through digitally focused, format-led extensions.
Compared with Q3, the network’s overall performance showed limited movement, underscoring the challenge faced by mid-scale national brands seeking growth in a market dominated by a small number of very large players.
A David among the Goliaths
Boom Radio continued to deliver a substantial audience in Q4 2025, with the station reaching just under 700,000 adults weekly. While this represents a marginal quarter-on-quarter easing compared with Q3, Boom remains one of the more widely listened-to services outside the largest national commercial portfolios, operating at a scale that many local and regional broadcasters would regard as significant.
In a market increasingly dominated by a small number of national brands, Boom’s performance underlines the continued appetite for specialist music formats and presenter-led programming aimed at older audiences. Maintaining a weekly reach close to 700,000 listeners places Boom firmly within the upper tier of independently positioned services, highlighting its role as a meaningful alternative within the U.K.’s increasingly consolidated radio landscape.
Gaining and losing momentum
While Q4 2025 did not produce dramatic swings in total radio reach in the U.K., the results highlighted several areas of heightened industry interest.
- Bauer Media’s quarter-on-quarter growth contrasted with softer results at Global.
- BBC Radio’s stability stood out against more volatile commercial performance.
- Speech-led services held ground but showed limited upside in reach.
- Digital-first distribution continued to underpin both growth and retention across portfolios.
As broadcasters and suppliers move into 2026, attention is likely to focus less on radio’s overall reach — which remains high — and more on which groups and brands are gaining or losing momentum within a structurally stable market.
You can find the full Rajar Quarterly Summary of Radio Listening Q4 2025 here.
You can compare these results with those of Q3 2025 by following this link.
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