Major British music channel BBC Radio 1 has posted its worst quarterly Rajar result in history. The station’s average weekly audience fell to 9.1 million in the period – representing around 14% of the total UK population, and down by more than 2 million people compared to five years ago. Year-on-year, Radio 1’s audience dropped by 804.000 compared to the three months to end of March 2016. Spotify now comfortably boasts more than 9.1m active users in the UK market (and is believed to be up towards the 10m mark on a monthly basis).
Spotify has also poached key Radio 1 staff over the past 18 months.
It’s the first time that Spotify’s UK audience has surpassed that of the BBC’s flagship new music radio network. Better news for the BBC elsewhere. BBC 6 Music posted its biggest ever weekly audience in the period with 2.35m. Overall, according to Rajar, average UK weekly radio listenership grew slightly in Q1, up to 48.23m people – up by 409k on the equivalent period of 2016.
BBC Radio 1 is on three transmission platforms; FM, DAB and Internet.
Read the full story in Music Business Worldwide
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