Classic FM has been an undeniable success story in the classical music world. For decades, it has been by far the most listened to classical music radio station in the world, with millions of listeners every week. It also adopted social media early, and now has channels with millions of followers. But despite occupying such an important part of the classical music ecosystem, it rarely gets the same level of meaningful scrutiny as its UK competitor BBC Radio 3, which is regularly the subject of articles criticising changes and minor fluctuations in listeners. So it may come as a surprise that when you look at how Classic FM is actually doing, it is haemorrhaging listeners and looks to be in real trouble.
A while ago I started looking into the numbers for UK classical radio stations. I was confused to see stations share their wins of how many people were listening each quarter when the Radio Joint Audience Research (RAJAR) were released, but with no context of how that sat in the bigger picture. So, I started one of the oddest hobbies ever and started collating all the historical data, sharing it each quarter with an update on recent results and how it fits into the bigger picture. You can find the most recent version of that here.
The results are truly shocking for Classic FM. As of September 2026, 13 out of the last 21 quarters have been record lows, and it has fallen to a new record low 4.11 million listeners. It has lost a quarter of its listeners from before the pandemic in March 2020. And it has been pretty much dropping ever since its high of 6.9 million in March 2003.