BBC Sheds More Listeners

Chris Evans departure from the Breakfast Show continues to have a negative effect on Radio 1’s listening figures. The station lost one and a half million listeners according to year on year comparison figures for Rajar Quarter 2 1997. The number of people tuning in to listen to Radio 1 fell by 12.2% from 11.006 million in 1996 to 9.669 million in 1997. The station’s share of listening fell from 12.8% to 9.7%.

There is better news for the BBC thanks to Radio 2, Radio 4 and Radio 5 Live who all improve their year on year weekly reaches. Radio 2 rises from 8.465 million in 1996 to 8.551 in 1997 (up 1%), Radio 4 increases from 8.078 to 8.204 million (up 1.5%) and Radio 5 goes from 4.878 to 4.936 million (up 1.1%).

Weekly Share of listening rose for all National BBC Radio stations except Radio 1. Best performance comes from Radio 2 which moves up one percentage point to a 13.2% share of total listening audience.

BBC’s local and regional licences whilst losing 6,000 listeners on the year maintained an 18% weekly reach. Their share of listening increased from 9.4% to 9.5%.