Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Lauren Laverne and Guy Garvey return most popular digital crown to BBC 6 Music

6 Music’s audience increased to a record 2.2m listeners, narrowly ahead of BBC Radio 4 Extra

Adam Sherwin
Media Correspondent
Thursday 04 February 2016 13:23 GMT
Comments
Lauren Laverne
Lauren Laverne (Getty Images)

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Record audience figures for Lauren Laverne and Guy Garvey, the Elbow singer, helped BBC 6 Music regain its crown as the UK’s most-listened to digital station.

6 Music’s audience increased to a record 2.2m listeners, narrowly ahead of BBC Radio 4 Extra, which previously held the top digital spot and now has an audience of 2.1m, Rajar figures showed.

Lauren Laverne’s 6 Music morning show now has 875,000 listeners whilst the audience for Garvey’s weekend show has soared by more than 25 per cent over the past year to reach 333,000.

Steve Lamacq's 6 Music weekday show is the station’s most popular with 1,080,000 listeners, and Shaun Keaveny rakes in 976,000.

Chris Moyles secured 300,000 listeners upon his return to the airwaves with his new breakfast show on Radio X, formerly XFM – however those figures are for London only and exclude digital listeners.

Nick Grimshaw appeared unaffected by competition from his Radio 1 predecessor, adding 100,000 listeners to his audience and recording a total of 6.37 million listeners per week, including those aged 10 and above.

Radio 1 said its YouTube channel, a key element in its strategy to reach a young audience, now receives an average of 1.25 million views a day.

The Chris Evans Breakfast Show on Radio 2 has 9.4 million listeners, some 1.3m more than Terry Wogan enjoyed when the late broadcaster handed over the programme.

Radio 4’s audience rose to just under 11m boosted by a strong performance by The Today Programme and Desert Island Discs.

Apple TV+ logo

Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days

New subscribers only. £8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled

Try for free
Apple TV+ logo

Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days

New subscribers only. £8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled

Try for free

Figures also showed that digital listening in cars grew by 45 per cent year-on-year, to 45m hours, and now account for nearly 20 per cent of all in-car listening. New cars are being fitted with digital radio as standard, bringing a date for switch-off of the analogue signal closer.

Radio 3’s audience was 2.05 million, keeping the classical station ahead of the benchmark 2m mark which it consistently hovers around.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in