BBC Breakfast drops for Evans and Moyles

Both Chris Evans and Chris Moyles lost listeners in the last quarter – but the gap is getting smaller.

Moyles is down to 6.93m listeners (7.1 last quarter and 7.4 last year) whilst Evans is down this quarter but up year-on-year to 8.95m.

The stations themselves are steady, with similar figures from recent surveys – BBC Radio 1 reaches 11.27 million listeners every week – compared to 11.14m last quarter and 11.69 last year – and has a share of 8.3%, – from 8.2% last quarter and 8.5% last year.

Radio 2’s weekly audience is 14.46 million – from 14.56m last quarter and 13.97m last year. It had a share of 16.1%, from 16.8% last quarter and 14.9 last year.

Digitally, Radio 4 Extra and Radio 1Xtra posted record figures in a quarter that saw digital radio account for nearly a third of all listening.

Radio 4’s sister station, which specialises in broadcasting entertainment programmes from the BBC archive, attracted a record 1.64 million listeners during the period – up from 1.5m last quarter and 1.61 m last year.

BBC Radio 1Xtra drew 1.14 million listeners each week – its biggest total since the station was launched 10 years ago.

BBC Radio 5 live sports extra also notched more than a million listeners, with an audience of 1.07m (up from 797,000 last year and 952,000 last quarter), while BBC Radio 6 Music continued its strong performance with 1.38 million weekly listeners (1.27m last year and 1.45m last quarter).

Tim Davie, Director BBC Audio & Music, said: “These figures represent a strong performance across our portfolio and an industry in robust health. Last year we laid out a clear strategy for our digital stations, so it is great to see our digital-only networks breaking records and all four attracting more than a million listeners every week.”

Radio 3 has 2.04 million weekly listeners – compared to 1.9m last quarter and 2.17m last year. The network’s share is 1.2%, from 1.1% last quarter and 1.3% last year.

Radio 4 posted a weekly audience of10.52 million, from 10.31m last quarter and a record 10.85m last year. Its share is 12.1% – compared to 11.9% last quarter and 21.42% last year. The Today programme has 6.76 million listeners each week, from 6.66m last quarter and a record 7.18m last year.

BBC Radio 5 live recorded a combined reach with sister station 5 live sports extra of 6.36 million listeners, from 6.55m last quarter and 6.68m last year.

The BBC Asian Network posted a record weekly reach of 547,000 listeners, up from 540,000 last quarter and 471,000 last year. BBC World Service posted a UK reach of 1.39 million (1.3m last quarter and 1.72m last year), while BBC Local / Regional radio reached 8.96 million listeners per week – from 9.9m last quarter and 9.65m last year.