Top 5 London-only stations shed listeners

The top five commercial radio stations in London all lost listeners year on year in the most recent RAJAR survey released today.

The drop for commercial stations come as BBC Radio 2 increases its London audience by half a million (2m to 2.5m), Radio 1 attracts 130,000 more and BBC Radio 5 live, now broadcasting from Salford, increased weekly London reach by 9%.

Magic remains at number one but loses 136,000 listeners taking it to just over 2m weekly reach. Capital drops 250,000 listeners and now has 1.983m.

In third place, Kiss now has 1.816m people tuning in having lost 58,000 listeners, and 4th place Heart goes from 1.931m to 1.707m.

LBC is also down from 967,000 to 902,000 listeners in London year on year.

The only London stations to gain listeners were Smooth Radio London, up 12.7% in the last 12 months, Absolute Radio up 9.1%, Choice FM up 4.6%, LBC News 1152 up 3.8%, Xfm London up 9.6% and Premier Christian Radio which saw a staggering 96.6% increase.

BBC London, which has 424,000 listeners in the capital, is also down 12.6% .

BBC Radio 4 remains the most listened to radio station in London, now with 2.7m listeners each week.