Jazz breaking news: Jazz FM scores big increase in audience figures
Monday, May 21, 2012
The UK’s digital jazz radio station, Jazz FM, has seen a big increase in its listeners and total time spent listening to the station, according to the latest set of figures from RAJAR, the official radio audience research body.
The first quarter audience figures for 2012 reveal an increase to 564,000 listeners while the time spent listening to the station has increased by more than half a million hours per week clocking in at 2.4 million. The hugely popular Dinner Jazz show presented by Helen Mayhew, Sarah Ward and Bob Sinfield, saw its listeners rise by 15 per cent to 189,000 listeners per week, and Chris Philips' Breakfast Show, with its increasingly vibrant mix of funk, hard bop and latin jazz, has risen by 26 per cent to 140,000 listeners per week. The station is also attracting a younger audience too with 50 per cent of listeners under 45.
“The latest RAJAR figures continue to demonstrate an increase in listening hours for digital radio, a trend we have been seeing over the last year,” says Richard Wheatly, Jazz FM’s CEO. “We are particularly pleased too, that Jazz FM continues to get younger and that it is part of an ever-growing trend for ABC1 audiences to listen to radio online, on mobile and now on iPads and other tablet devices.”
– Jon Newey
Richard Wheatly (pictured, above)