Core Radio 3 is down on its previous quarter, though its ‘brand extension’ sees a modest increase.
This week’s BBC press release about the recent RAJAR figures calls Radio 3’s most recently reported quarter “impressive,” pointing to a combined ‘brand’ figure of 2.24 million listeners that includes Radio 3 Unwind. The core network, Radio 3, secured 1.88 million listeners in Q2 2026, compared to 1.947 million in Q2 2025 — a figure that has fallen year-on-year in every quarter of the past twelve months.
Radio 3 Unwind’s uptick in listeners — up from 388,000 to 408,000 year-on-year — does some work in telling the story of growth for the Radio 3 brand overall, even as the core network’s own figures continue to lessen. The Breakfast presenter change, when Petroc Trelawny moved to drivetime show In Tune and Tom McKinney took over in Q2 2025, looks to have taken time to bed in: the show is up year on year to 822,000 in Q2 2026, though that’s a step down from 861,000 the previous quarter. Not panic stations necessarily, but at a time when classical feels more noticeably hyped, the traditional distribution point is seeing a fall, not growth.
The real question is what happens in the next quarter — Q3 2026 — when the Proms is on, historically the station’s strongest. Q3 2025 saw a fall in listeners of over 11% year-on-year, a drop even the trade press called “curious” at the time, with no convincing explanation on record. Nothing in the presenter change at Breakfast, Unwind’s move onto DAB+, or a RAJAR methodology satisfactorily explains the drop. An uncomfortable question is raised: are people losing interest in the Proms and live classical, or just listening differently? The next quarter may well give some indication.
