Data is collected using a seven-day listening diary. Approximately 110,000 adults 15+ are asked to fill one out over 50 weeks of the year. Read full details of the survey.

Go to Quarterly Listening. When the page comes up it will default to the latest data release, which shows the adult weekly listening for every station on the survey. There is a drop down menu if you want data prior to the current quarter.

RAJAR collects listening data by quarter hour between 06.00 and 24.00 and by half hour between 24.00 and 06.00. This information is available from RAJAR by subscription only; please click here to see costs. Detailed station data, including programme listening is copyright to the station we do not publish this. If you call the radio station concerned they may give you the information. The data is their copyright.
The BBC can be contacted via their website www.bbc.co.uk/contact#radio

Unfortunately RAJAR is not able to handle data requests for reports. With a subscription you would be able to run your own reports or access the subscriber area of our website depending on the level of subscription you take out.

RAJAR has no input in this area. You will need to contact the stations direct to obtain this information.

RAJAR has been monitoring data since 1992 for both commercial and BBC radio stations. Prior to that data was collected for the commercial radio stations by JICRAR. The BBC ran its own telephone panel survey on a day after recall basis up to 1992. RAJAR publishes data from 1999 onwards on its website; data prior to this is not available as survey methodology changed. See the About RAJAR section for an explanation of the changes.

To access this data on the RAJAR website you need to be a RAJAR subscriber.

For radio stations that wish to join the survey, please see the rate card of prices, which is based on the size of the TSA (Total Survey Area).
For non-broadcast subscribers there are different subscription levels depending on the level of data access required. See the ratecards for details of the fees.

The survey currently asks people if they have listened to radio on the Internet and whether it was a UK national, local or a station from overseas. Respondents are also asked to record which platform (AM/FM, DAB, DTV, and Internet) they used when listening to a station during the diary week. Listening broken down by platform is only accessible via a planning system subscription.

The weekly adult listening figures for each station are free and available in the Quarterly Listening section of this site. Libraries are quite at liberty to become subscribers to receive our data and have it available in their education centres. RAJAR does not issue paper reporting.

You cannot volunteer to join the survey. The seven day listening diary is placed with individuals across the UK using a different sample each week. Selection of respondents is carried out by the research contractor. Each area must contain respondent’s representative of the population in the area.

BARB (Broadcaster's Audience Research Board) is the TV equivalent of RAJAR. www.barb.co.uk

No there is no overall organisation that collects radio audience information across Europe and countries use different methodologies to collect data. For more information about other radio associations in Europe, see the website for the Association Europeenne de Radios www.aereurope.org

If you click on the Release Dates section of the website all our data release dates are listed.

Click on the Release Dates section of the site and you will find the fieldwork dates listed.

Please email us on info@rajar.co.uk with you full details (including phone number) so that we can get back to you.

Due to the highly specific nature of their requirements, RAJAR does not measure hospital or student radio stations.

RAJAR will consider applications from Community stations. Due to the highly localised survey requirements, it is unlikely that existing sample points are already in place requiring a specific cost to be calculated for each application.

Unfortunately as RAJAR is a not for profit organisation we are unable to offer a discount to charitable stations wishing to join the survey.

Do I get less good ratings because there are more diaries in the outskirts of my TSA rather than the core?

Stations often get more diaries in their outskirts because that's where the most overlaps occur i.e. other stations have their own diary requirements and if they need more diaries in a smaller area, then they will inflate the proportion of diaries in the overlap area. However, because RAJAR treats each overlap area as a separate survey segment, the diaries in each area are weighted back to the correct proportion. For example, Andrews FM is a station of 1m TSA, with an overlap with Cloudy FM (TSA 300,000), where the population in the overlap area is 200,000. Andrews FM needs 600 diaries overall, but Cloudy FM needs 500. Thus Andrews FM only needs 120 diaries in the overlap area (20% of 600) but Cloudy FM needs 366 (66% of 500). This means that, on paper, Andrews FM has 846 diaries (480 in the non-overlap area and 366 in the overlap area). However, those 366 diaries are down weighted so that they only represent 20% of Andrews FM's results. Effectively, people living in the non-overlap area are worth more per head than people living in the overlap area. (Non-overlap = 480 people representing 800,000 = 1 person is weighted up to 1,667; Overlap = 366 people representing 200,000 = 1 person is weighted up to 546.)

....and even if the weighting deals with it, doesn't it mean that we are weighting results that are skewed against me to start with?

As above - the weighting means that the results that are "skewed" make a lesser contribution to your overall results than the "un-skewed".

....and how do I know we are getting a balanced set of postcodes in the core?

We go to great pains to map out each segment so that sample points are distributed equitably in terms of distance and direction from the center, as well as balancing the sample points in terms of type of residence, ethnicity, social grade of area etc. to ensure we represent the area fairly.

What happens if a group of postcodes with low listening are picked which are not representative of my audience?

The selection is random outside the above controls and although we weight everyone to balance the normal things (working status, household size, age, gender etc) it is a random sample and we cannot balance in terms of how much they listen or to what. Sometimes the sample for a quarter works out a bit more favorably, other times less favorably, but over time the results give a true representation of the station's health. This is called "sample error" and is a fact of life in survey research. Think of it like tossing a coin ten times. You should get 5 heads and 5 tails each time, but often you'll get 6 of one and 4 of the other, or even worse. But the more times you toss the coin, the more likely you are to get a correct result.

**Please note we boost core London by 500 diaries per quarter.