MUMBAI: UK radio broadcaster BBC Radio has a 54 per cent share of all radio listening in the UK. This places it almost ten percentage points ahead of commercial radio's 44.2 per cent share.

These figures were released by Radio Joint Audience Research (Rajar).

The figures cover the period 13 September 2004 to 12 December 2004. That quarter saw seven new commercial stations entering the already highly competitive marketplace.

The BBC's share is down slightly on last quarter's 54.4 per cent but up on the corresponding quarter for 2003 which stood at 52.9 per cent. The BBC's reach of 32.49 million is also ahead of commercial radio (31.18 million).

BBC radio and music director Jenny Abramsky said, " I am particularly pleased to see the Asian Network top the half million mark." The BBC Asian Network has 535,000 listeners compared with 473,000 last quarter and 453,000 in the same quarter of 2003.

However BBC World Service has a reach of 1.27 million. This is down on the previous quarter's figure of 1.37 million and the same quarter of 2003 where the figure stood at 1.3 million.