Peak Time at re:union — When Most People Are Listening
We looked at listener data from the past few months. When is peak, where do listeners come from, what devices carry the stream — and which artists get played most? A data peek behind the scenes.
A radio station is, in the end, also a measurement. When do people tune in, when do they tune out, where do they sit geographically, on what devices do they listen. At re:union Radio we looked at the numbers from the last few months and share the main observations here — transparently, without tracking nuisance, but with a few insights that might be interesting for other small stations too.
Peak times
The clear leader is Friday night. From 8 PM to 2 AM, Friday Night Live runs with Thorin Tønsberg, and those six hours bring our highest concurrent listener counts of the week. The curve rises from 7:30 PM, hits a first peak around 10:30 PM, a second around midnight, and runs fairly steadily until about 1:30 AM. If you missed a night, the Friday Night Recap covers the full arc.
Number two is Sunday afternoon — Sunday Chillout between 2 and 6 PM. The curve looks different there: flatter, broader, less peak-oriented. People tune in across the afternoon and often stay through the whole show.
Morning Rebuild on Monday morning has a small but extremely loyal core. Peak numbers are lower than on Friday night, but time per listener is higher than any other show. Those who tune in at 6 AM on Monday tend to stay till 9.
Outside of shows, the Auto-DJ runs its dark techno rotation. The curve is broader across the day, with a small afternoon peak between 4 and 6 PM on weekdays — presumably the home-office cohort.
Where listeners come from
Geographic distribution is broader than expected. About 40 percent of listeners sit in Germany — language and community roots explain it. Another 30 percent spread across the rest of Europe, with concentrations in the Netherlands, France, Poland, and the UK. The remaining 30 percent come from the rest of the world — notably strong: USA (especially East Coast), Japan, Australia.
Particularly interesting: peak times shift by region. When it\'s Friday 10 PM in Germany, it\'s 4 PM on the US East Coast — and still we see significant listener numbers from there. Hard techno seems to have cross-timezone demand.
Device split
About 50 percent of streams run through mobile browsers — smartphone, mostly Safari on iOS or Chrome on Android. 35 percent come from desktop browsers, especially during working hours. The remaining 15 percent is split between smart TVs, hi-fi streamers with built-in Icecast clients, dedicated radio apps, and the occasional Bluetooth speaker.
For us as a station that means: the mobile experience has to work. The player button must be reachable with one thumb on a smartphone, metadata has to load fast, and the stream can\'t drop when the screen locks. We\'ve optimised these systematically over the past months.
Most-played artists
A look at the track histogram of the last 30 days — everything that ran both in the Auto-DJ and in the shows. The current top 5:
- SNTS — expected, a core artist for the industrial/hard techno sound
- Ancient Methods — heavy in Morning Rebuild and in the Auto-DJ night rotation
- Luke Slater (under various aliases: Planetary Assault Systems, L.B. Dub Corp) — versatility across several slots
- Hadone — prominent in Friday Night Live, especially the late hours
- Tale Of Us (and the Afterlife connection) — dominant in Sunday Chillout
Below that come names like I Hate Models, Mind Against, Kobosil, Mathame, Regis and Surgeon. The list isn\'t random — it reflects the station\'s genre focus. For scene cross-reference we lean on outlets like Resident Advisor and DJ Mag.
What we do with it
Data isn\'t an end in itself. We use the numbers mainly to answer two questions: does the programming match the community\'s listening habits? And where are the moments where we could still get more out of it? Friday night is solid — here we mainly optimise streaming quality. Monday morning is a small but important audience we don\'t neglect. And the Auto-DJ at night has surprisingly stable numbers, which motivates us to keep curating the night rotation.
If you want to be live when the peak curve is highest: Friday from 8 PM, Friday Night Live, six hours of Thorin Tønsberg. Stream as always via Icecast, 192 kbps MP3 — enter via Live hören or browse the full Sendeplan.
