BBC Radio maintains scale with impressive listening figures for much-loved presenters as BBC Sounds caps 2025 with its strongest quarter ever

New figures across BBC Radio and BBC Sounds show how listeners consumed the BBC’s audio content in the final quarter of 2025, both live and on demand.

According to the latest RAJAR figures for the period (15 September 2025 – 14 December 2025), the BBC is still the number one radio brand with 31m people tuning in each week for live output across BBC’s radio stations, with share up slightly on last quarter at 42.8%.

BBC Sounds closed 2025 with its strongest quarter to date, recording 706 million plays across radio, podcasts and music mixes between October and December.

BBC Radio 2 continues to be the UK’s most listened to single radio station with a weekly reach of 12.7m. Scott Mills remains the UK’s most listened to Breakfast Show, increasing his audience to 6.5m listeners, his highest figure since taking over Radio 2 Breakfast in January 2025. Vernon Kay continues to be the most listened to show on UK radio, growing to 6.7m listeners each week. In a quarter which saw Sara Cox run five marathons in five days, raising an incredible £12m for Children in Need, listeners tuned into Radio 2 for just over 11 hours each week, a four- year record for the station.

BBC Radio 3 also had a strong quarter with 1.91m listeners, up 6% on the previous, with highlights including Carols Across the Country, Train Tracks - a day of broadcasting from the Highland Chieftain train - and Prime Minister Keir Starmer joining Michael Berkeley on Private Passions. Radio 3 Breakfast, presented by Tom McKinney, also performed well, up 22% on the quarter and up year-on-year.

BBC Radio 1 attracted 7.41m (10+) listeners with Greg James continuing to lead with the number one Breakfast Show for young listeners with 4.1m (10+) tuning in.

BBC Radio 5 Live delivered trusted news, sport and lively conversation to millions of listeners this quarter, remaining steady with a 5.3m weekly reach. 5 Live Breakfast had a good quarter, attracting nearly 1.5m listeners up 16% from the previous quarter and 5% year-on-year. Listening hours were also the highest in five years at over 33m and up 8% year-on-year.

BBC Radio 4 remains the UK’s leading speech radio station, holding steady last quarter and reaching nearly 9m listeners each week. Figures also show there was a 12 month average of over 9m weekly listeners.

Radio 4 Extra also performed well, increasing its reach to 1.55m, up both quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year, underscoring the continued strength and distinctive appeal of the network’s speech audio offer.

In addition, almost 7m a week listen to our output on BBC Nations radio and local BBC Radio in England.

Across the BBC Sounds app, website, TV and voice-activated-devices, there was an average weekly audience of 4.9m last quarter, with a peak of 5.1 million during the week of 3 November 2025 – coinciding with The Celebrity Traitors: Uncloaked finale.

For audio plays from across the BBC including BBC Sport, BBC News, BBC Bitesize and visualised podcasts on iPlayer, there was an average weekly audience of 5.5m, peaking at 6.2m (w/c 3 November).

Between October and December, there were 268m plays of on demand radio programmes and podcasts, alongside 3.7m plays of music mixes on BBC Sounds. The platform also recorded 11m signed in accounts over the quarter.

Across the full year in 2025, BBC audio content continued to grow at scale with 2.8 billion plays on BBC Sounds, an increase of 8% year-on-year. Podcast listening played a significant part in that growth, with a 12% increase in plays compared with 2024. A total of 17 million accounts also engaged with radio, podcasts and music mixes on BBC Sounds across the year.

Kate Phillips, BBC Chief Content Officer, says: “The BBC continues to be the number one radio brand and I’m delighted that audiences across the country are choosing to spend their day with our incredible roster of much-loved presenters.

"Alongside this, the impressive performance of BBC Sounds, celebrating its strongest quarter to date, demonstrates the success of our digital strategy. I’m proud that we continue to bring audiences a breadth and scale of content that they won’t find anywhere else, however and whenever they choose to listen.”

RAJARS – live listening in Q4 2025

In this quarter, 31m people listened to the BBC’s unrivalled programming across its radio stations, with a share of 42.8%

• BBC Radio 1 has 7.41 million (10+) listeners and Greg James has 4.1 million (10+) listeners for Radio 1’s Breakfast Show.
• BBC Radio 2 has an audience of 12.7m and the BBC Radio 2 Breakfast Show hosted by Scott Mills has 6.5m listeners
• BBC Radio 3 has 1.91m listeners and Radio 3 Breakfast reaches 840k listeners, the highest Q4 performance for the programme since the pandemic
• BBC Radio 4 has an audience of 8.92m listeners with 5.61m tuning in for the Today programme (Mon-Sat)
• BBC Radio 5 Live reaches 5.3m listeners
• BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra has 1.1m listeners
• BBC Radio 6 Music has 2.4m listeners
• BBC Radio 1Xtra has 800k listeners, BBC Radio 4 Extra has 1.55m and BBC Asian Network has 584k
• BBC World Service (UK) has 1m listeners a week
• BBC Nations radio and Local BBC Radio in England has a combined audience of 6.8m listeners

BBC Sounds: October – December 2025

BBC Sounds continues to enjoy impressive growth, with a record 706m plays between October and December and a massive 2.8bn plays across the year.

Beyond BBC platforms, BBC podcasts and on-demand radio programmes were downloaded 885m times on third party platforms in 2025 – an increase of 5% year on year – with a total of 227m downloads for on demand speech content last quarter (October-December). Audiences discovered audio in new ways with 4.3bn social video views in 2025 (+24% year on year) and 1.14bn views between October and December.

Uncanny was the most popular podcast last quarter (October-December 2025) for both all adults and listeners under 35. Following a countdown to the new series, this terrifyingly popular podcast recorded an hour-long live Halloween special in the BBC’s Radio Theatre, starring comedian James Acaster, to kick off series 5. Diane Morgan also featured as the guest for the Christmas special.

The History Podcast ranked second among all adults and featured The House at Number 48, the story of a man’s quest to reclaim a family fortune stolen under the Nazis; it also placed in the top ten among under 35s.

The Celebrity Traitors: Uncloaked drew in faithful listeners, placing third most-listened to podcast for under 35 year olds, and helping drive a peak of 5.1M listeners on BBC Sounds during the (w/c 3 November).

Also remaining faithful was the Halloween special Radio 1 Traitors, ranking the second most popular on demand radio programme for listeners under 35, after Radio 1 00s.

Miss Me? continued to resonate with younger listeners, who were treated to festive specials featuring the return of Lily Allen and special guest JADE, and featured among the most popular podcasts for under 35 year olds.

As The Archers marked its 75th year, the longest running audio drama took the top spot for on‑demand radio programmes. Enduring favourites including Desert Island Discs, In Our Time and Mark Steel’s In Town were also among the top ten. Elis James and John Robins was the most listened to on demand radio programme for listeners under 35, followed by The Archers and Radio 1 Breakfast with Greg James.

Sidetracked with Annie and Nick had the highest proportion of listeners under 35, with Tailenders and Test Match Special Podcast also among the top ten following a dramatic Ashes series in Australia.

Podcast acquisitions performed strongly again last quarter, led by Sherlock Holmes Short Stories, Short History Of, Cold Tapes and The Rest Is History, and as we marked the author’s 250th birthday, Jane Austen Stories read by Julie Andrews also proved very popular among listeners on BBC Sounds.

Christmas Music was the most‑listened music mix in Q4, followed by The Sleeping Forecast and Radio 1’s Dance Anthems.

The Global News Podcast was the most‑downloaded programme globally on third party platforms, followed by 6 Minute English and Newscast.

EDA

Follow for more