Latest news about talkRADIO

RAJAR Q4 2019: New record for digital radio listening

Digital listening share has increased by 11% to a new record of 58.5%, up from 52.6% in Q4 2018 in the latest figures for Q4 2019. They were boosted by the launch of new national commercial digital stations, and the growth of listening online via smart speakers in home and DAB listening in car. Overall digital listening grew by 43.4 million hours or 8% year on year. Listening via online and apps grew by 28.5 million hours (or by 30%) to now account for 12.5% of all listening and 21.5% of digital listening...

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...

Eamonn Holmes replaced by Dan Wootton on talkRADIO

The Sun’s Executive Editor Dan Wootton is to replace Eamonn Holmes on talkRADIO Drive from February 2020. Dan has hosted a weekly weekend show on the digital station since March 2018, and more recently Friday Drive, but will now be promoted to a full-time show, whilst continuing his work on the newspaper. Wireless CEO Scott Taunton said: “I’m absolutely thrilled that he has committed to expanding his contribution to talkRADIO, bringing his insider take on the day’s news and the best guests from his bulging contacts book, as the station continues to drive record growth...

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...

Opinion: RadioToday industry predictions for 2020

One thing is for sure – radio is changing at an incredible pace. Keeping up with emerging products and making full use of smart technology is key. But whilst the art of ‘input’ is changing, the ‘output’ has remained fairly static for many decades. Listeners can still hear a friendly voice on the radio at all hours of the day – the major difference is where the voice is located and when they were recorded. But let’s dig deeper down into the industry and see what 2020 might bring...

RAJAR Q3 2019: London and national brands round-up

Zoe Ball has lost another 364,000 listeners to her BBC Radio 2 breakfast show in the latest radio listening figures from RAJAR. It means more than a million weekly listeners have switched off since she took over the breakfast show from Chris Evans in January. In the period 24th June to 15th September 2019 (Q3/2019), Radio 2 breakfast had a weekly reach of 7.902m – that’s down from 8.266m in Q2 and 9.047m in Q1.While Zoe is still the presenter of the UK’s biggest breakfast show, the figures are the lowest for the slot in a decade – since...

Overnight changes at talkRADIO and talkSPORT

There’s a new addition to the talkRADIO weeknight schedule as Darryl Morris takes over from Paul Ross, who moves to talkSPORT. Darryl joins talkRADIO full time to host 1am till 5am, whilst Paul Ross now hosts the same slot on its sister station. In addition, Paul Coyte is launching an early sports breakfast show at 5am across the talkSPORT network. “I can’t begin to tell you how excited I am to do this every day. I’m going to jump in with both feet and see what adventures await,” Darryl posted on social media.

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.

Phil Williams returns with a week on talkRADIO

Former BBC Radio 5 Live presenter Phil Williams has been hired by talkRADIO to host Drive for a week. He’ll be on-air Monday 22nd July to Thursday 25th July from 4pm till 7pm, covering for Eamonn Holmes. His colleague, and talkRADIO breakfast presenter Julia Hartley-Brewer tweeted that he’ll also be live from College Green on Tuesday and Wednesday. Phil left 5 Live in May after 18 years, where he presented the Late Show since 2013. Before 5 Live, Phil worked at BBC Radio 1, GMR in Manchester and XFM London.

George Galloway sacked by talkRADIO over Israel tweet

talkRADIO has terminated George Galloway’s contract following his tweet at the weekend after Liverpool beat Tottenham Hotspur in the Champions League final. Not long after the final whistle on Saturday night, Mr Galloway wrote: “Congratulations to the great people of Liverpool to the memory of the socialist miner Bill Shankley to the fallen 96 to those who fought justice for them and to the Liverpool dockers. No Israel flags on the Cup!”