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One million listeners desert radio shows of Wogan and Moyles but radio bosses insist: 'We're not concerned'
Last updated at 02:31am on 25.07.08
BBC radio's Terry Wogan and Chris Moyles have lost close to a million listeners, figures reveal.
Wake Up To Wogan on Radio 2 now has a weekly audience of 7.74million - dropping 357,000 in the past three months.
Moyles lost 515,000 Radio 1 listeners, with 7.2million now tuning in each week. Wogan earns around £800,000 for his five-times-a- week, two-hour show.
Moyles, who claimed to be the 'saviour of Radio 1' when he joined the station five years ago, is understood to be paid £630,000 for his show.
Victory: Terry Wogan has the edge on rival Chris Moyles, right
Radio 3 and Radio 4 performed solidly making slight increases on the last year, according to the figures released by industry body Rajar.
A Radio 1 spokeswoman insisted 'we're not concerned at all' by the figures, and pointed out that up until this point Moyles's ratings had increased for the last six quarters.
Overall, Radio 2 also saw a drop in listeners, with a weekly 13 million listeners, down from last quarter's all-time high of 13.63 million last quarter and 13.12 million this time last year.
The station's share of listeners is 16 per cent this quarter, down 0.5 percentage points from its record share last quarter but up from the 15.6 per cent it was this time last year.
Radio 1 attracted 10.68 million listeners per week in the quarter - down from 10.87 million last year and 11.07 million last quarter.
Its audience share, at 10 per cent, has dropped from this time last year when it stood at 10.3 per cent and last quarter when it was 10.6 per cent.
A BBC Radio 4 spokesman said the weekly reach for listeners to the topical Today programme went up this quarter compared with the same quarter last year.
The number of weekly listeners stands at 6.26 million, whereas the same figure last year was 6.18 million.
The weekly reach for the station as a whole also went up, standing at 9.53 million this quarter from 9.48 million this time last year.
Leading in London: Neil Fox's (left) Magic FM breakfast show has over 20,000 more listeners than rivals Jamie Theakston and Harriet Scott on Heart FM
But it was down on the previous quarter's figure, which was 9.56 million.
Its audience share stands at 12 per cent, up on last year's figure of 11.2 per cent but down on the previous quarter, which was 12.2 per cent.
The station is the most popular in London, attracting 2.43 million listeners there.
Neil Fox's show on Magic is the capital's most popular breakfast show, with 868,000 listeners, leapfrogging easy-listening rivals Jamie Theakston and Harriet Scott, who have 844,000 listeners on Heart.
But Big Breakfast veterans Johnny Vaughan and Denise Van Outen, reunited at the start of the year to revive the fortunes of Capital's breakfast show, are failing to pull in more listeners and their reach is down to 772,000.
Nationwide, Radio 3 is attracting more listeners for longer, according to the data.
The network, which offers classical music, jazz, world music, drama and arts, recovered from what the BBC said was a 'disappointing' performance last quarter of 1.8 million to reach 1.91 million listeners every week, up from 1.78 million last year.
Its audience share hit 1.2 per cent, up from 0.9 per cent last quarter and 1.1 per cent last year.
Jenny Abramsky, director of BBC audio and music, said she was 'delighted' to see Radio 3 recovering its reach and share.
Radio 5 Live and its sister digital service 5 Live Sports Extra had a combined reach of 6.12 million - up slightly on last year's combined total of 6.10 million.
In general trends Rajar said 45.1 million listeners now tuned into a radio station each week, a slight decrease of 300,000 on the previous quarter's figure of 45.4 million.
Radio listening via a digital platform remained steady over the past quarter but has increased year on year.
The figures show that 17.9 per cent of all radio listening is now via a digital platform - such as DAB, digital TV or the internet - up from 12.8 per cent in the same period last year.
Radio listening via mobile phone also continues to rise - among people aged 15 and over it increased to 12.2 per cent from 8.9 per cent this time last year.
Reader views (3)
Here's a sample of the latest views published.
Chris Moyles comes across as an arrogant know it all and I only saw a wee bit of humility in him when he was in that singing show. I wouldn't listen to him if you paid me!
And I use to listen to Terry Wogan every morning but in the last six months he seems to have gone to pot, he rambles, repeats himself, tries desperately to be funny and without his 'stooges', very smutty Janet and John stories and the cheery traffic reporter his show would trully be pants.
He is so past it! It is embarrassing listening to him slavering on about absolutely nothing everyday.
And the guy after him (Ken Bruce) is about as funny as a fart in a spacesuit!
Time for something new week day mornings me thinks!
- Janey C, Inverness, Glasgow
I can't believe that anyone likes that annoying, aggressive, totally unfunny idiot, Moyles. Hopefully this is the beginning of the end of his carrier.
- Colin, London
I think the difference here is one of intellect, no one who listens to Moyles has one.
- C Evans, London
