Capital Radio’s Breakfast Show Remains On Top In London

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 and Magic 105.4’s breakfast shows currently run from 6am-9am while 95.8 Capital Radio’s runs from 6am-10am.

Johnny Vaughan’s 95.8 Capital Radio breakfast show remained the commercial station on top in London in Q2 2008, with a weekly reach of just under 945,000 listeners following a year on year increase of around 0.5%.

The station added an extra half an hour to its breakfast show running time in Q1, following on from the half an hour increase in Q4 2007. The show now runs for four hours.

Magic 105.4’s breakfast show enjoyed both a period on period and year on year rise in weekly reach, of 4.5% and 5.5% respectively, giving it a total of almost 870,000 listeners.

There was not such good news for Heart 106.2 FM’s breakfast show, down 3.4% year on year, to leave its weekly reach at around 845,000 listeners.

At the start of June, Jamie Theakston signed a three-year extension to his breakfast show deal, which will see him remain in place until the start of 2011 (see Theakston Gets Three More Years At Heart 106.2).

Heart 106.2 and Magic 105.4’s breakfast shows both run for three hours.

Looking at just the 6am-9am slot, Capital Radio’s reach is 772,000, compared with almost 870,000 for Magic 104.5 and around 845,000 for Heart 106.2 FM.

Kiss 100FM also saw its breakfast show’s weekly reach fall in Q2, by around 14.5% year on year and 10.5% period on period, leaving its reach at around 585,000 listeners.

It was a mixed quarter for XFM 104.9 at breakfast time. It was up period on period by around 11.5% but down year on year by 30%, to take its reach to 222,000 listeners.

Total Virgin (London) now has a weekly reach of around 595,000 at breakfast, following a year on year dip of just over 1%.

There was a large year on year decline for Gold London’s breakfast show, of around 49%, seeing its reach drop to just 97,000 listeners.

Nationally, BBC Radio 2 was once again top at breakfast, with Terry Wogan grabbing a weekly reach of over 7.7 million listeners, although it was down 2.2% year on year.

Chris Moyles on BBC Radio 1 also saw a fall in weekly reach, of almost 3% year on year, taking its total to 7.2 million listeners at breakfast.

BBC Radio FIVE LIVE was up by 3% period on period and around 2% year on year. It now has a weekly reach of more than 2.3 million at breakfast.

talkSPORT was down period on period, by around 7%, although its reach grew by around 4% year on year, leaving its total at around one million listeners.

Classic FM’s national reach at breakfast time was down 0.5% on Q1 2008, to just under 2.8 million listeners.

BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio 4, meanwhile, were both up by around 1% year on year, taking them to 734,000 and nearly 6.3 million listeners respectively.

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