RAJAR Q2 09: Breakfast

This analysis is comparing the weekly reach of the breakfast shows of the London stations and not the time slots. Heart 106.2 FM’s breakfast show currently run from 6am-9am, while 95.8 Capital Radio’s runs from 6am-10am and Magic 105.4’s runs from 5.30am-9am.

Johnny Vaughan’s 95.8 Capital Radio breakfast show remains on top in the Capital once again with a weekly reach of more than 1.1 million listeners, after an impressive year on year increase of 22.4%, according to RAJAR’s Q2 2009 report.

The station’s breakfast show sits well ahead of its rival London shows now its reach remains above the one million listener mark.

Magic 105.4’s show has become its nearest competitor, jumping ahead of Heart to take second place, after an 8.7% period on period increase to 858,000 listeners. However, Magic’s reach dropped by 1.3% year on year. The station’s breakfast show now starts half an hour earlier.

Heart 106.2 FM, meanwhile, slipped down to 818,000 listeners following a year on year fall of more than 3%.

Kiss 100’s ‘The Rickie & Melvin breakfast show’ had another good period and is quickly closing the gap on the top three London breakfast shows. The station enjoyed an impressive 34.4% year on year rise, taking its total reach up to almost 790,000 listeners.

A number of other stations also witnessed substantial year on year upturns in Q2 – Gold London’s reach rose by an amazing 101% to 195,000 listeners and LBC 97.3 was up by nearly 38% to 504,000 listeners, which puts it in fifth place behind Kiss.

Smooth Radio (London) and Sunrise Radio (Greater London) also enjoyed significant percentage increases of 20.4% and 31.1% to 248,000 and 173,000 listeners respectively.

However, some breakfast shows didn’t do as well this quarter. Choice FM London reported a 14.9% year on year fall to 223,000 listeners, LBC News 1152 was down 10.6% year on year to 127,000 listeners, and Xfm dropped by almost 9% to 226,000.

Nationally, BBC Radio 2 remained top at breakfast after increasing the lead on BBC Radio 1. Terry Wogan rallied during Q2 to secure a weekly reach of more than 7.9 million listeners after a year on year rise of 2.4%.

However, Chris Moyles and his team on BBC Radio 1 didn’t come far behind with over 7.7 million listeners, following an impressive year on year increase of 7.1%.

BBC Radio 4 remains in third place with a weekly reach of 6.5 million, after a 4% year on year rise.

All the other stations in our analysis reported period on period and year on year increases, with the exception of talkSPORT, which dropped 6.1% year on year.

However, the sports-focused breakfast show saw a slight increase of 0.3% period on period, which helped keep its total above the one million listener mark.

BBC Radio 3 had the most impressive period out of the national stations in our analysis – it posted a 10.4% year on year and 10.7% period on period rise, taking its total reach to 810,000 listeners.