Just in: Classic FM and BBC Radio 3 suffer massive audience losses

Results are in from RAJAR for the third quarter of 2022 and they make miserable reading for the UK’s two leading classical radio stations.

BBC Radio 3 has lost one in six of its listeners, down 16% from 2 million to 1.71m listeners. This is a particular disaster since Q3 usually brings an uptick from the summer Proms. This year’s Proms were the weakest in recent memory. The stations’s boss announced last month that he is leaving.

Things are even worse at Classic FM, which has posted falls for four of the last five quarters and is now down to 4.66 million, its lowest in two decades.

Here’s some analysis from media entrepreneur Davd Taylor.

And more from Radio Today.

Something’s got to change. There’s not point in being user-friendly if the users go elsewhere.