Latest news about BBC World Service

Festive Highlights for 2018 on BBC Radio

BBC Radio has today announced its on-air highlights for the festive period. Bob Shennan, BBC Director of Radio & Music, says: “This Christmas BBC Radio will offer an unrivalled collection of programmes featuring the finest DJs, musicians and actors. Across our stations, teams have curated brilliant schedules with world-class talent - all of which are available on BBC Sounds.”

RAJAR Q3 2018: London and national brands update

Nick Grimshaw left the BBC Radio 1 Breakfast Show with half a million more listeners than a year ago – handing them to Greg James who took over the show halfway through the last quarter. The show now attracts 5.75m listeners (Mon – Fri) and is up 465,000 Year on Year. In London, Capital is back on top with almost 2,100,000 listeners according to Reach in the London commercial radio battle, as Kiss slips back under the 2m listener mark (1,958,000). Magic is in third place (1.5m) whilst Heart comes in 4th (1.4m). But BBC Radio 4 continues to lead the London Reach with 2.4m listeners.

RAJAR Q2 2018: London and national brands update

Kiss has taken over from Capital as the biggest commercial radio station in London in the latest Q2/2018 RAJAR listening figures. Capital’s audience in the capital is down 10.8% year on year to 2.063m, while Kiss has had a great quarter, hitting 2.087m weekly listeners – 24,000 more than its rival. In third place is Magic (1.667m), which leapfrogs rival Heart this quarter (1.404m). LBC is in fifth on reach with 1.280m listeners in the capital (down 9.3% year on year).

2018 New York Radio Festivals winners announced

Two of the five top ‘Grand Awards’ of the New York International Radio Festivals have gone to the UK this year, thanks to the BBC and TBI Media. The BBC won in the Best Digital Special Event category for putting on BBC Radio 1 Vintage for the station’s 50th birthday last year, whilst TBI Media took home the prize for its Born This Way documentary made for BBC Radio 2.