Capital puts Global back on top in London

95.8 Capital FM, despite losing listeners this quarter, is back on top as the most listened to commercial radio station in London.

The top four have shuffled around since last time, when Magic was first, Capital was second, Kiss was third and Heart was fourth.

The latest figures show Capital FM on top with just under two million listeners followed by Magic, Heart then Kiss. Staying in 5th place is LBC 97.3.

However, listening hours for Capital and Heart are down. Both have just over 9m hours representing the lowest listening figure they’ve ever recorded since the current RAJAR methodology began in 1999.

The top local London stations for share are Magic (5.6%), LBC (4.6%), Capital (4.2%), Heart (4.2%), Kiss (3.9%), Absolute (1.8%), Gold (1.7%), XFM (1.3%), BBC London (1.3%), Smooth (1.1%), Choice (1.1%) (Thanks Matt)

There are big shifts in listeners for Buzz Asia 963 & 972 AM which has shed half its listeners in the last 12 months, and both LBC News 1152 and Smooth Radio have 30 per cent less audience than a year ago. In figures, LBC News 1152 has gone from 405,000 listeners to 283,000 whilst Smooth Radio London – home of the Simon Bates Breakfast show – drops from 626,000 to 430,000.

It’s good news at Xfm though – with Jon Holmes now on breakfast, the station has increased its audience by 40% year on year. It now has 574,000 listeners compared with 409,000 last year.

Sunrise Radio and Gold have both enjoyed a significant increase too. Sunrise has doubled its listeners within 12 months and Gold is up 21.8 per cent year on year to 363,000 London listeners.

Away from commercial radio, BBC Radio 4 remains the most listened to station in London with 2.8 million tuning in each week, followed by BBC Radio 2 on 2.4m.