Latest news about BBC Radio 3

BBC Radio 3 announces star-studded dramas including a never before produced Anthony Burgess script starring Christopher Eccleston

The new audio dramas will feature leading voices in British theatre and television including David Suchet, Maxine Peake, Christopher Eccleston and Toby Jones, and award-winning 20th century writers, thinkers and playwrights including Roy Williams OBE. The forthcoming commissions tackle bold issues ranging from a women’s journey joining an all-female militia in Northern Syria, to Shakespeare’s play Othello staged in a contemporary world and a drama following the social history of a Notting Hill neighbourhood and location of the Grenfell Tower fire, Notting Dale, told through the eyes of one family...

RAJAR Q4 2019: London and national brands round-up

Coverage of the general election helped 5 Live, Radio 4 and LBC each add half a million listeners across 2019. 5 Live is up from 4.9m to 5.4m in the Q4/2019 RAJAR listening figures, while Radio 4 has added a similar amount, rising from 10.4m a year ago to 10.9m now. LBC, including new digital station LBC News, posts a record high of 2.7m listeners (up more than half a million year on year), while talkRADIO is up more than 40% from 12 months ago to now have 433,000 listeners a week – another record high for the Wireless station...

BBC exec announces ‘ambitious plans’ for Radio 3

The BBC’s Director of Radio and Education, James Purnell, has announced what he called ‘ambitious plans’ for Radio 3 to help audiences develop a lifelong love of classical music. Speaking at the Association of British Orchestras (ABO) Conference in Manchester, he announced a collaboration with Sport Relief and a showcase of female creativity. “Beat Beethoven’ will see the composer’s music taken out of the concert hall and onto the running track, while “Seven Ages of Woman’ to mark International Women’s Day will see the world premiere broadcasts of work from seven composers, specially commissioned for Radio 3...

Shortlist out for Audio and Radio Industry Awards 2020

The shortlist for this year’s Radio Academy’s ARIAs have been announced at an event at News UK headquarters in London. Presenters getting nominated include Chris Evans, Greg James, Stephen Nolan, Zoe Ball and Frank Skinner. Bauer leads the Commercial Radio nominees with just over two dozen, whilst we count that News UK has around 15. Global isn’t mentioned due to not submitting any entries once again this year. The rest of the shortlist includes newspapers, independent podcasts, independent producers and presenters, along with a few local radio stations including...

'It's a new golden age': Radio 3 launches video game music show

Radio 3 is launching a new weekly programme dedicated to video game soundtracks. Running from Saturday 26 October, the hour-long show will be presented by composer Jessica Curry, who won a Bafta for her work with UK studio The Chinese Room and created and presented Classic FM’s video game music programme, High Score. “[BBC presenter and journalist] Tom Service and his producer Brian Jackson came to interview me for Radio 3 at Chinese Room a couple of years ago, and we all really hit it off,” said Curry. “Tom’s an avid...

Jazz FM and BBC Radio 3 share content in new partnership

BBC Radio 3 and BBC Sounds will broadcast Jazz FM content whilst Jazz FM is to share key recordings from BBC Radio 3. The partnership is in aid of the EFG London Jazz Festival bringing the two stations together. Shared content will appear on both BBC Radio 3 and BBC Sounds, and whilst the two stations have collaborated before with a digital pop-up BBC Music Jazz, this will be the first time BBC Radio 3 will be broadcasting content from Jazz FM on the network, with Jazz FM similarly sharing Radio 3 content from recorded concerts with...

Record listening figures for Greg James and Dotty on Radio 1 and Radio 1Xtra

Latest Rajar data (Q2 2019, 1 April - 23 June 2019) shows Radio 1 and Radio 1Xtra have drawn in more listeners each week. BBC Radio 1 had a weekly reach of 10.56 million listeners aged 10+, an increase from 10.18m last quarter and 10.25m last year. BBC Radio 1Xtra also saw increases this quarter, with 1.17 million weekly listeners (10+) up on 1.13m last quarter and 1.11m last year. Highest number of listeners for Radio 1 Breakfast with Greg James as he adds a quarter of a million new listeners since he started last year...

RAJAR Q2 2019: London and national brands round-up

Zoe Ball has lost more than three quarters of a million listeners to her BBC Radio 2 breakfast show, according to the latest audience research from RAJAR. The show’s reach is down 781,000 quarter-on-quarter to 8.266m for the three months survey period up to the 23rd June 2019. In Q1/19 she had 9.047m listeners; in Q2/2018 Chris Evans reached 9.038m. Radio 2’s audience at breakfast is now the lowest its been since Q3/2010, when Evans was fairly new in the job.

Zoe Ball joins top earners list at the BBC

New BBC Radio 2 breakfast show host Zoe Ball has joined the BBC big earners top 10 list whilst Jeremy Vine took at £110k pay cut. Vanessa Feltz also makes it inside the top 10 list, which this year includes three women for the first time, along with Claudia Winkleman. Chris Evans is still in the list, as it covers the period from April 2018 to March 2019, so will only represent nine months of work. He got £1.25m for 150 editions of the Breakfast Show (or £8.3k per programme).

RAJAR Q1 2019 – Zoe & Chris plus national and London radio round-up

Chris Evans and Virgin Radio both reached over a million listeners in the first quarter of 2019. The digital station’s audience has almost trebled compared with the last period of 2018 thanks to the arrival of Evans from Radio 2. In Q1/2019 it posts a weekly reach of 1.3m and total hours of 7.765m. A year ago those figures were 427,000 and 1.632m. Last quarter they were 447,000 and 1.686m.