Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

The number of people tuning in to Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio Wales and Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio Cymru has increased according to the latest audience listening figures published by RAJAR today.

The strong performance of the stations has seen an increase of 30,000 for Radio Wales and 13,000 listeners for Radio Cymru over the past three months, and increases of 55,000 and 27,000 respectively compared to six months ago. The number of people listening to Radio Wales has increased to 449,000.

Steve Austins, who was appointed Editor of Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio Wales in May, said: "We have a strong team of presenters and programmes on Radio Wales catering for our diverse audience, and these figures show that we're going in the right direction and maintaining our position as the most listened to indigenous radio station in Wales. We're always looking at ways to improve our output, and we will be making some changes to the schedule in September in order to strengthen our programming even more."

Reacting to the news that Radio Cymru has increased its audience to 161,000 in this period, Owain Arfon Williams, Acting Editor of the station, said: "The station is performing well at the moment and the schedule changes that were introduced at the end of 2008 have bedded in. As the only national Welsh-language radio station, we must meet the needs of a varied audience.

Despite these good results in this last period, there is always room for improvement and we will continue to work to increase our audience, to improve quality and listen to what our audience is telling us. We have a raft of new programmes on air this month and I'm looking forward to hearing what the audience thinks of those."

AF