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I write a decent newsletter called Radioland. Below is the top story; otherwise, it's all at https://james.cridland.net/blog/2026/time-spent-listening-australian-commercial-radio/

An email I got from the CRA, from the last survey, is interesting. The headline - Commercial Radio grows from breakfast to bedtime as more Australians listen for longer - got me wondering.

There are of course “more Australians” listening to commercial radio because there are more Australians - the last census showed a population growth of 8.6% in just five years. But that’s only half the story: the number of listeners to commercial radio is actually growing faster than the population growth: up 2.8% year-on-year.

However, “Australian listen for longer” was new: I’d not seen any data showing listening time for radio. The regular surveys don’t publish anything to do with listening time; and for a long time, I’ve wondered how Australian commercial radio compared.

So, I asked the CRA’s new PR person - expecting a polite no - whether they could share exactly how long Australians are spending with commercial radio every week, and how that compared with five years ago. Would it be like we are seeing in Europe?

And I got the above graph back. It’s a pretty rosy look for commercial radio - remaining remarkably steady over the last five years at around 12 hours 10 minutes over the last year. Worthwhile noting that there’s no appreciable difference after the departure of Kyle & Jackie O (S2/26 or thereabouts). In survey 6, the claim “Australians are also spending more time each week with commercial radio” is true - the total time spent listening was up from S5’s 12 hours 4 minutes to S6’s 12 hours 8 minutes.

If I take anything from this graph, it’s the recovery of radio post-COVID in 2022; and to learn more about whatever happened in 2025!

For comparison: Aussies are spending 12.1 hours a week with commercial radio; the British are only spending 9.7 hours with commercial radio in the UK (RAJAR Q2/26). Perhaps this is a story of the relative audience figures of the BBC (42.6% share in the UK) vs the Australian ABC (15.5% share in Brisbane).

Very interesting detail; and worthwhile reminding ourselves how resilient radio is. I’m grateful to the CRA for sharing this.

(Also - hat-tip to those doing charts that contain hours and minutes. Redrawing this graph was a bloody nightmare. That’s not fun, is it?)