Radio 2's Chris Evans loses 1m listeners

BBC Radio 2's The Chris Evans Breakfast Show lost just over 1 million listeners in the second quarter of 2010, according to the latest audience data.

Evans, who replaced long-time show host Terry Wogan at the beginning of the year, initially increased the programme's listeners to 9.53m, compared to Wogan's final quarter figures of 8.1m.

However, official RAJAR data for the three months to June 27 today revealed that the breakfast programme lost 11% of its listeners to 8.47m.

Despite the loss, the weekly reach was still the show's second highest ever figure and Evans's programme remains the most popular breakfast show in the UK.

Fresh from its axe reprieve by the BBC Trust, 6 Music has continued to attract new listeners, with its weekly reach growing to 1.19m, up from 1.02m in the previous quarter. The digital station has also doubled its weekly audience from 595,000 last year.

Radio 1 attracted a record weekly reach of 11.81m listeners over the quarter, up from 11.74m in Q1, although its 9.3% share was down from 10.3% at the same time last year.

The Chris Moyles Show pulled in 7.72m listeners, which was flat year-on-year but slightly down on last quarter's record of 7.88m.

BBC Radio 4's weekly reach stood at 10.04m, up from last quarter's 10m. The station's Today programme attracted 6.98m weekly listeners, up from 6.44m last quarter.

The recently-crowned Sony Awards 'Station Of The Year' BBC Radio 5 Live posted a record combined reach of 6.76m, up from the previous quarter's 6.48m.

Welcoming the audience figures, BBC director of audio and music Tim Davie said: "This is another good set of figures for the radio industry.

"I'm delighted to see our speech networks attracting record audiences, fuelled by interest in the general election and illustrating the public's enduring demand for high quality news, analysis and discussion on radio."

Radio 3's weekly audience fell to 1.86m over the three months, down from 2.03 last quarter. The network's share also dropped slightly to 1% from 1.2% last year and last quarter.

Radio 7's weekly reach stood at 949,000 in Q2, down from 1.05m in the previous quarter, while 1Xtra also saw its audience fall to 600,000 from 663,000 in Q1.

The Asian Network, which is still facing the axe under BBC plans, actually grew its weekly reach to 437,000 listeners from 357,000 last quarter and 421,000 last year.

Overall, the BBC's audience share declined slightly from 56.5% to 54.6%, allowing commercial radio to increase its share from 41.3% to 43.2%.