BBC favourite for breakfast radio in UK

BBC Radio 1 has added 248,000 listeners over the past year, according to figures released today by Rajar.

The Chris Moyles Breakfast Show now has 6.81 million listeners – up from 6.52m last year and 6.79m last quarter, with an audience share of 11.3%.

BBC Radio 2's weekday breakfast show hosted by Terry Wogan still has the biggest share in the UK, with a 7.65 million weekly reach.

Chris Evans weekend breakfast show on the station, added 33,000 listeners on the quarter, but was slightly down on the year to reach an audience of 4.88m.

Jenny Abramsky, director, BBC Radio & Music, said: "I'm pleased to see the continued, steady growth of Radio 1, and our digital-only networks contributing to the rise in digital listening."

The figures - covering the period from 26 June to 17 September 2006 – show the network's reach is 10.58 million (10.42m last quarter and 10.33m last year), while share is 9.8% - up from 9.4% last year but down on last quarter's 10.3%.

Other national stations Classic FM and TalkSport also report significant increases to their breakfast programmes with Simon Bates on Classic managing 2.9 million listeners and talkSport registering 999,000. Virgin Radio (AM and FM) managed 1.07 million.