Audience figures drop for Nick Grimshaw

The BBC Radio 1 Breakfast Show has attracted 6.69m listeners every week in its first full quarter – down from 6.73m last quarter and 7.24m last year.

Although 3.43million 15 -24 year olds are now listening to the network compared to 3.27million in the last quarter. In addition, the average age of the station has now dropped to 32 from 33 in the last quarter.

But the station has also seen an overall drop in adult listeners, from 11.20m last quarter and 11.67m last year to 11.09m in the latest survey.

The figures were to be expected after the high-profile exit of Chris Moyles in 2012, who’d been on the breakfast show for over eight years.

Ben Cooper, Controller of Radio 1 & 1Xtra said: ‘ What a fantastic quarter for Radio 1, I’m delighted with the figures and they have exceeded my expectation for a brand new breakfast show. This has been the biggest schedule change in a generation which has resulted in the station’s audience getting younger.

‘1Xtra also saw big changes this quarter from a brand new drive time show with Charlie Sloth and I’m delighted that this million strong network has found a new star!’

Elsewhere around the BBC, Radio 2 and Radio 6 Music hit new highs and BBC digital stations continue to show long term growth. Radio 2 now has 15.1 million listeners a week, and 6 Music has almost made it to two million at 1.89m.

The Chris Evans Breakfast Show hit 9.52 million weekly listeners, from 8.55m last quarter and 8.86m last year.

Radio 5 live’s digital station Sports Extra showed 37.5% year on year growth to reach 847,000 listeners a week. This was down from its record Olympics quarter of 1m but up from 616,000 last year.

Radio 4’s sister network 4 Extra was up 8.4% year on year 1.69 million from 1.55m. Its quarterly reach fell marginally from 1.69m. Reach for the urban music station 1Xtra was up 2.7% on last year at 1.04 million.

Graham Ellis, acting Director BBC Audio & Music, said: “These figures underline the remarkable performance of Radio 2, which has had a great quarter and a great year. It’s also good to see steady and in some cases spectacular growth in our digital networks and in digital listening across the industry.”