Classic FM welcomes thousands of new classical music listeners in 2022, radio figures reveal

19 May 2022, 00:01

By Classic FM

@ClassicFM

New audience figures show that in the first three months of 2022, the year we celebrate our 30th birthday, Classic FM welcomed thousands of new listeners.

We have welcomed 100,000 new listeners to Classic FM, according to the latest radio listening figures.

In our 30th birthday year, results by Radio Joint Audience Research (RAJAR) show that 5.2 million people now tune into Classic FM every week.

The overall amount of time the audience tunes in has gone up too. Total listening to Classic FM every week now stands at 44.5 million hours, which is the highest it’s been for 17 years.

The figures, which come from the official body in charge of measuring radio audiences in the UK, prove that classical music continues to provide comfort, focus and joy in people’s lives.

We have seen increases in listeners for all daytime programmes beginning with Classic FM’s More Music Breakfast with Tim Lihoreau, which has seen a rise of 87,000 listeners compared to the last three months of 2021, bringing Tim’s audience to a total of 1.7 million.

Alexander Armstrong welcomes 2.4 million listeners from 9am to 12pm on weekdays, a rise of 43,000 listeners compared to the previous quarter.

Classic FM Requests also proves as popular as ever, with an additional 28,000 listeners boosting Anne-Marie Minhall’s afternoon audience to 2.5 million listeners.

Smooth Classics with Margherita Taylor has gained just shy of 100,000 listeners, with 700,000 people now listening to Classic FM from 10pm to 1am on weekdays. Similarly on weekends, Myleene Klass now welcomes 484,000 listeners to her Smooth Classics programmes on Saturday and Sunday evenings.

At the weekend, Alan Titchmarsh and Aled Jones are joined by nearly a million listeners each on Saturday and Sunday mornings, with 964,000 and 998,000 people tuning in respectively.

Source: Ipsos /RAJAR.