BBC Radio Northampton bucking trend of declining local listening figures

BBC Radio Northampton has bucked the trend of declining listening figures for local radio, latest audience figures have shown.
BBC Northampton's Bernie Keith NNL-150812-163937009BBC Northampton's Bernie Keith NNL-150812-163937009
BBC Northampton's Bernie Keith NNL-150812-163937009

Nationally, the number of people tuning into their local BBC radio station has dropped by 174,000 in the past three months.

However, BBC Radio Northampton has increased the number of listeners by 1,000 to 80,000. This is 16 percent of the 490,000 people aged over 15 years old in the county.

The radio station also has one of the highest average hours per listener, with a total of 13.2 hours.

The figures for Heart Northamptonshire, which covers a population area of 561,000, reached 31 per cent of people aged over 15 years old, a total of 173,000.

Marsha Ramroop, assistant editor at BBC Radio Northampton, said a number of new initiatives had proved popular with listeners.

She said: “The local radio market is competitive, so we are really pleased with the growth of BBC Northampton in this quarter. We love and care about this county as much as everyone listening to us, and we hope that comes through with everything we do on air.

“At Northamptonshire Day, we invited the audience to come along and meet the presenters. They see us championing what’s great about the county, and we have a lot of fun – which is what we like to do every day on air.

“We are also very proud of our original journalism, such as our recent investigation into the Missing Millions at Sixfields and our health campaigns.

“As part of Helen’s Big Health Check last month we encouraged listeners to get checked for skin cancer. We have been told that six people have been told they have cancerous moles as a result of medical examinations. They say they wouldn’t have gone to get themselves checked out if it wasn’t for our campaign.”