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More trouble for Capital as 100,000 switch off Johnny Vaughan
Updated 11:22am on 26 Oct 2006There are question marks over Johnny Vaughan's future at Capital Radio today, after the breakfast show host's audience plummeted to an all-time low.
The DJ has shed more than 100,000 listeners in the past year, down to 782,000 - the lowest ratings ever for the high profile morning slot.
The results add to widespread woes at Capital 95.8FM, which has seen audiences decline by nearly half a million in the past months.
When the last quarterly radio ratings released in August, Capital bosses said the station had hit "rock bottom". But months on it has fallen even lower.
According to radio ratings body Rajar, Capital listeners are down from 1.8 million week to 1.4 million — a fall of nearly 20 per cent in the year.
The station's market share — the key concern for commercial stations - has also dropped to an all-time low of 4.7 per cent, pushing it into third behind rivals Heart, in the number one spot, and Magic, in second place.
While Vaughan remains the No1 commercial breakfast DJ in London, the gap has narrowed dramatically with Heart's Jamie Theakston. There are now just 14,000 listeners between them.
Vaughan's defence, most of London's breakfast DJs have seen their ratings crash quarter. Only Kiss FM, where Robin Banks has replaced Bam Bam, and Magic, Neil Fox, have seen audiences rise.
Ratings fell for Xfm's Lauren Laverne, Heart's Theakston and Virgin's Christian O'Connell.
However, Vaughan's decline could be as more significant because he inherited such a large fan base from predecessor Chris Tarrant.
When he left the station and-a-half years ago, Tarrant enjoyed listening audience of 1.2 million.
Steve Orchard, operations director of Capital owners GCap, today insisted: "Johnny is still the number one commercial breakfast show in London. We believe in him." But while he said there were "no plans" to ditch Vaughan, he added: "You can never say there will be no new changes in the line-up because we are constantly improving what we've got."
Mr Orchard also defended Capital's overall losses, insisting that the station's new marketing campaign — featuring lipstick scrawled posters across London — had not kicked in yet and that a new programme director, Scott Muller, had only just arrived.
But one industry insider said: "Johnny Vaughan has been a disastrous show. He's only just sitting in No 1 place and there seems to be no question of him going up again any time soon."
Meanwhile, there was good news for Chris Evans, who has confounded critics of his move to replace veteran Johnnie Walker in the Radio 2 drivetime seat.
His national ratings rose from 4.78 million last year to 4.88 million. BBC 6Music also enjoyed a significant boost, with audiences up from 285,000 last year to 400,000 this quarter.
How they fared: 12-month change
RADIO 1: Chris Moyles 836,000 (down from 900,000) CAPITAL: Johnny Vaughan 782,000 (down from 893,000) HEART: Jamie Theakston 768,000 (down from 883,000) MAGIC: Neil Fox 725,000 (up from 645,000) KISS 100: Robin Banks 645,000 (up from 505,000) VIRGIN: Christian O'Connell 519,000 (down from 648,000) XfM: Lauren Laverne 283,000 (down from 349,000)
Reader views (6)
I think Jonny's done a good job since Chris moved on, and have enjoyed his humour after a slow start. But what the hell is Denise on there for, she's terrible and ruins the show....so much so, that I now regularly turn to another station, so I don't have to put up with her. Could be that she's the problem here, not Jonny!
- Shaun, Merstham, UK, 02/04/2008 18:37
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Johnny Vaughan is awful! I now no longer listen to his show, I listen to Kiss until 10am and then turn to Capital when he's safely off the air! 'I Love Rhubarb' has to be one of the worse things ever, and now has found it's way onto later shows - how I do not know! And 'Windows Down' where he more or less talks through a whole track pretending to be a rave DJ is just him indulging himself and not about pleasing the listener at all! I think he's the worst DJ I've ever heard and I'll never put myself through his Breakfast show again. It's a shame he's on Capital because he's all that ruins it and I'd have it on all day at work if it wasn't for him!
Bad choice Capital - and why oh why did you give him an extra hour!
- N Warner, London, England, 07/11/2007 10:04
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I am surprised that Johnny Vaughan has been able to attract any listeners at all, his manner has always been superior and self effacing, he should see if the space rocket is still available and get into orbit!
- Steve London, Holbeach, United Kingdom, 23/09/2007 19:24
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Jonny has had a pretty tough time - let's face it he followed Chris Tarrant and Russ Caine who were a formidable team. As for Jonny's team not being strong enough what utter tosh! They provide a good source of light hearted humour and compliment Johnny's style well - they say nothing to offend and communicate well with their listeners unlike the experience with other radio stations. Keep it up guys!
- Jemma, Romford UK, 07/11/2006 14:37
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The Breakfast show has been caught napping a couple of times now. It's tried to copy some bits from Radio 1 and failed. With crew members like Zoe & Welshy, they are only appealing to listeners who like to get drunk all the time and boast about it, and 2nd rate spoof calls - which harks back to the brief success that Steve Penk had when he was at Capital - and where is he now? Come on Capital, you can do a lot better with someone like Johnny, use him and build a stronger crew around him.
- Colin B, London, UK, 26/10/2006 13:44
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Johnny Vaughan is great, he always seems like he and his crew are having a great time, but I wish he'd get rid of that juvenile idiot 'Welshy' his spoof phone calls have been done before and better on other radio stations. Come on Capital 'innovate not immitate'
- Julie, London England, 26/10/2006 12:21
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