Talking of younger viewers, well, listeners really, the Media Guardian reports that while the BBC radio has more listeners than the combined commercial radio sector, commercial stations fare better among younger listeners - with their biggest lead on the Beeb in the 15-24 age group. This isn't perhaps all that surprising, given that the commercial sector relies a lot more on pop music stations than the BBC, who attract large audiences in older demographics through its speech, sport and news programming.
The Guardian says that according to RAJAR stats, 74.7% of 15-24 year olds listen to commercial radio, while only 59.5% tune into BBC stations. Commercial radio is also ahead in other younger age ranges - 69.1% to 63.7% in the 25-34 group, 70.1% to 63.6% in the 35-44 group. After that things become more or less evenly split, until the 65+ age group, where only 42% listen to commercial radio, while 73.1% listen to BBC radio. This skew means the Beeb fare well in terms of listener hours, because older listeners tend to listen to the radio for longer periods of time.
Recognising those trends, a spokesman for the BBC said that their radio output had always served older audiences more - because only Radio 1 really provided a youth focused pop service. She said that the Beeb satisfied the needs of older listeners better, especially through its local stations - adding that while the commercial sector was winning over more younger listeners, those listeners would probably move over to the BBC as they get older. She said: "BBC local radio is for older audiences, who commercial advertisers don't want. Although commercial radio has said it is growing, the commercial radio generation through younger listeners, when they grow up they continue to come to the BBC. Commercial radio doesn't serve the older audience, we superserve them".
The Commercial Radio Companies Association also recognised these trends, stressing that it showed that commercial radio was more successful than overall listening figures sometimes suggested (top level figures always showing the BBC being ahead). Their spokesman said: "Traditionally, the core commercial radio audience is 15 to 44-year-olds and within all of these individual age breaks we exceed the BBC both nationally and in London. These are the demographics that our advertisers want to reach and therefore, for the most part, the people that our stations aim their programming at, so it's gratifying to see that we are still very effective at delivering these audiences".