GB News Radio saw its weekly reach increase by almost a fifth in the latest RAJAR listening figures for Q1 2025.
The quarterly growth meant GB News Radio was once again bigger than News UK’s Talk (formerly Talkradio). GB News had overtaken Talk in Q3 2024 but was back behind in Q4.
GB News Radio saw quarter-on-quarter growth in weekly reach of 19% to 559,000 in the three months to 31 March while Talk saw a decline of 4% to 485,000.
On a year-on-year basis GB News was up by 23% and Times Radio was up by 24% (to 622,000) but Talk was down 36%. The past year has seen the closure of TalkTV and the revamp of Talk’s schedule.
The drop for Talk was the biggest fall among the news and current affairs stations analysed by Press Gazette on both a quarterly and annual basis.
On a quarterly basis it was joint with BBC Radio 2 which saw a 4% decline in Q1 to 13.1 million. BBC Radio 2 was overtaken by Global-owned Heart (weekly reach of 13.4 million) for the first time as the UK’s biggest radio brand.
Talk still narrowly had more total listening hours compared to GB News Radio (4.34 million vs 4.32 million, despite a 16% quarter-on-quarter drop for Talk) and higher average hours per listener (nine hours versus 7.7).
Talk said it did see a 46% increase in listening hours via connected devices.
Sister station Talksport saw its biggest-ever reach in the quarter of 3.9 million people per week, up 9% quarter on quarter and 5% year on year.
News UK EVP, president of Broadcasting, Scott Taunton, said: “Record audiences for both Talksport and Times Radio attest to the fact that both stations are absolute destinations for their highly engaged and growing audiences.
“It’s worth noting also that News Broadcasting’s roster of national brands, including Virgin Radio UK and Talk, remain at the vanguard of digital broadcasting – driving rich connected listening, and meeting their audiences where they are – on social channels and streaming services, as well on digital audio platforms.”
RAJAR Q1 2025 listening figures for news and current affairs stations:
The biggest increases in total listening hours were for LBC News. Its national station saw growth of 29% to 2.8 million while its London-only strand was up 87% to 2 million.
The GB News Radio breakfast show also overtook Talk in the same time slot. GB News hosted by Eamonn Holmes and Ellie Costello between 6am and 9.30am was up 25% year on year and 14% on a quarterly basis while Talk, presented by Mike Graham, was down by 30% and 14% respectively.
BBC Radio 4’s Today grew 2% year on year to reach 5.7 million listeners per week on average.
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