eMarketer: Digital Audio Radio – Performing extremely well in the UK

Digital radio listening increased by approximately 9% year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2013
UK consumers are still spending time listening to radio, listening to a total of 1.03 billion hours of content in the fourth quarter of 2013, according to Radio Joint Audience Research Limited, Ipsos MORI and RSMB. This is only a slight decrease from the 1.037 billion hours in the fourth quarter of 2012.
However, the proportion of digital radio listening continued to rise, from 342 million hours in the fourth quarter of 2012 to 371 million hours in the fourth quarter of 2013.

In terms of share, digital radio accounted for 36.1% of all radio listening hours in the UK in the fourth quarter of 2013, up 3% from the same period in 2012. Meanwhile, digital audio broadcasting (DAB) accounted for 23.4% of all radio listening, up from 21.1% the previous year. DAB accounts for the majority of digital radio listening, accounting for almost 65% of digital radio listening in the fourth quarter of 2013.

Digital radio, especially DAB, has clearly found a way to undermine traditional AM/FM radio in the UK. This is reflected in the attribution of media ad spending in the UK. eMarketer predicts that the share of ad spending going to traditional radio (excluding cable and digital radio) is set to decline from an already relatively small base.

In 2014, radio will account for just 2.1% of total media ad spending, and this will continue to decline to 1.9% by 2017. At the same time, the share of digital (of which digital radio forms a part) will continue to rise.