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Chris Moyles, the self-styled saviour of Radio One, has lost close to 700,000 listeners in three months, industry figures revealed today.
The 35-year-old breakfast show host who was recently mocked for being too old for his slot by rival Chris Evans, reached 7.04 million listeners each week in the third quarter of the year - down from 7.72 million on the previous quarter.
In London, the Leeds-born DJ also continued to lose out to Capital's breakfast show hosts Johnny Vaughan and Lisa Snowdon.
Vaughan and Snowdon pulled in 1.03 million listeners each week during the same period compared to Moyles' 950,000 - down 30,000 on the last quarter.
This came despite Vaughan and Snowdon losing a tenth of their audience - 122,000 listeners - in three months.
The country's most popular breakfast show remains Wake Up to Wogan on BBC Radio Two, which has 7.76 million listeners tuning in each week.
Chris Evans, 43, will go head to head with Moyles when he takes over from Terry Wogan in the New Year.
The BBC was celebrating Radio 4's highest audience in 10 years, with station insiders putting the success down to heightened interest in news and current affairs during the recession.
The station is now listened to by 10.22 million people every week - up from 10million last quarter
Its flagship current affairs show, the Today Programme now reaches more than 6.6 million listeners a week - up nearly half a million on last year.
BBC Five Live Sports Extra - a digital-only service -- also reached a record 963,000 listeners this Summer, buoyed by its ball-by- ball Ashes coverage.
Radio 3 also fared well, recording its highest reach for five years with listeners tuning it to Proms concerts.
A BBC Radio One spokeswoman said today: "Radio 1 has had another strong performance with over 11 million listeners for the third consecutive quarter, and our reach among our younger audiences is up too. Chris Moyles is up year on year - and still pulling in over 7 million listeners."
Reader views (19)
How funny listening to all these people ranting about how useless and unfunny Mr Moyles is!!! So....how on earth is he so populer and for so long!!! Oh yes thats because he's not useless and he is funny!! Millions tune in everyday to listen him. You may not like him but i'm pretty sure the bbc will listen to the millions that do rather than the few that don't.
- Jonny, London
What a terrible, ageist angle to take - if figures are down across the board it surely indicates a seasonal dip in figures because people are on summer holidays.
- Omar, Brixton, London
I think he's still one of the most entertaining DJs around. His breakfast show is a real antidote to the pain of having to get up in the morning. I hope he's there for a while yet.
- Cam, London
Bring back tony Blackburn and dave Lee Travis,so we can ridicule them further!
- General Lee Wright, Skint Kent in Bankrupt Britain.
Dropping from 7.7m to 7m doesn't quite strike me as 'failure', but having said that, I must join the chorus of 'I can't stand the fat git'. I do tune in to Radio 1's Breakfast Show occasionally (you wouldn't expect a 59-year-old to do so more often) and every time I wonder why the idiot doesn't play more music rather than listen to him waffle on with his friends. The real problem is, tho', that once he is finally dropped by the oh-so-cool dudes who run Radio 1, he's bound to turn up on Radio 4 sooner or later when that station decides yet again to 'become more popular'.
- Patrick Powell, st breward
Fat boy Moyles has been involved in a long love affair with himself for many years,the dwindling audience reflects his folly,his contribution to entertainment could be written on a pinhead.
- Paul Kew, Bent Kent in Broken Britain
its a case of the emperors new clothes with moyles.his team have got to tell him the truth he isnt funny.get rid of him so he can appear on celeb fatclub.
- Mark Hemmings, yeoville deepest somerset
How his moronic, ignorant, untalented side kick "Comedy" Dave is still employed is a mystery to most. Chris Moyles I quite like. It's amazing though that the amount of people who can't stand him seem to listen to him.
Also if, as someone suggested, his salary should be audience related would that be a £1 per listener? It'd put his earnings above Jonathan Ross.
- Derek Porter, London, UK
Ghastly man, the sooner he disappears the better.
- Fanfan La Tulipe, London
Truth is he is 'talentless' and a bighead and people dislike him.
So i'll say it again 'public Joe don't like you'
- C Cusano, Bedford
The real mystery is how this unfunny buffoon ever attracted any listeners in the first place.
- Jethro Penzance, Bodmin
They are all running very scared of the extremely talented Steve Allen on LBC 97.3.
- Anthony, Esher, Surrey
I believe these figures cover the summer months, when listening is down for everybody. The only meaningful comparison is with the same quarter last year.
- Fabio, Londres
Good, I detest Chris Moyles, his show is boring, he's a self obsessed man who only wants to talk about himself. Burping live on air is disgusting, why is he allowed to do that??? Oh and when he interviewed Kiefer Sutherland he kept stopping the man short to bleet on about his Kilimanjaro climb! No one cuts short Kiefer to talk about themselves. Chris, we're just not interested in your boring stories! So rude. Oh, and my office friend agrees with me!
- Melissa, Surrey
perhaps his salary should be audience size related?
- Hippus, London, london, UK
It's not his age, it's the pathetic, sycophantic form the show tales evert day, and the fact that he hardly plays any music. talk gets very boring aftter a wgile - especially when we have to listen to him most of the time
- Keith Price, Luton England
Maybe the recession is picking up and they've all got jobs now? We've all been there, off ill or on the dole and sat and watched the dross daytime TV, maybe these people stay in bed and listen to the radio instead?
- Bob, Cheam
They have all gone over to LBC.
- Amber In Mitcham, Mitcham Surrey
that was careless.
- Squiz, Islington
