22/05/17 - Spotify now officially has more UK listeners than BBC Radio 1 (73)

22/05/17 - Spotify now officially has more UK listeners than BBC Radio 1 (73)

With Rajar's release of Quarter 1 radio numbers, BBC Radio 1 posted what is its worst quarterly result in history. This can be seen through its average weekly audience falling by over 2 million people in comparison to what was the case in 2012. What makes these figures even more notable though, are how Spotify according to MBW's sources boast over 9.1 million active users in the UK market. This marks the first time where the Spotify UK audience have surpassed Radio 1. The radio network has been what seems like quite a specific target for Spotify UK, 'poaching' key Radio 1 staff such as ex-Head of Music George Ergatoudis to become Head of Content Programming and Austin Daboh who is currently the Senior Editor, Content Programming. Controller of Radio 1, Ben Cooper, in defence of the performance stated that: 'You can't judge a newspaper solely on physical sales - you have to take into account our digital innovations as well.'

• The station's average weekly audience fell to just 9.1m in the period - representing around 14% of the total UK population, and down by more than 2m people compared to five years ago
• Year-on-year, Radio 1's audience dropped by 804,000 compared to the three months to end of March 2016
• Quarter-on-quarter, Radio 1's Q1 audience fell by 459,000 in the first three months of 2017
• In Q4 last year, the station's Rajar number stood at 9.56m people - its lowest last-quarter tally since 2003
• BBC 6 Music posted its biggest ever weekly audience in the period with 2.35m
• Average UK weekly radio listenership grew slightly in Q1, up to 48.23m people - up by 409k on the equivalent period of 2016

This article displays another platform of traditional media being victim to what is a new and digital media development. Streaming services like Spotify now have the capability of exceeding audience listenerships attained by flagship networks like BBC Radio 1. The occurrence of this is something that perhaps a few years back would have come under heavy doubt for as much of its suggestion.