Global’s Heart Breakfast with Jamie Theakston & Amanda Holden and Capital Breakfast with Roman Kemp both bounced back after suffering double-digit audience declines last quarter.
The former added over 300,000 average weekly listeners in Q4 (+8.2 percentage points quarter-on-quarter) to reach 3.9 million and the latter added 170,000 average weekly listeners (+6.8 percentage points quarter-on-quarter) to 2.7 million.
The figures make Heart Breakfast the biggest commercial breakfast show and the biggest commercial radio show in the UK.
All major BBC Radio breakfast shows dropped in year-on-year listenership, according to the latest figures from Rajar.
Though BBC 2’s The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show remained the leading breakfast show in the UK, it saw a quarter-on-quarter decline in listenership of 3.1 percentage points (-4.8 year-on-year) to 7.1 million average weekly listeners. BBC Radio 1 (-4.5 points), BBC Radio 3 (-13.9), BBC Radio 4 (-4.4), and BBC Radio 5 (-12) all saw their breakfast shows decline year-on-year.
A beneficiary of the BBC’s loss of breakfast market share has been Bauer, which saw year-on-year audiences grow by 19.5 percentage points on Simon Ross-hosted Greatest Hits Radio (+3.4 points quarter-on-quarter) to 1.7 million average weekly listeners. The smaller Hits Radio Breakfast Show also increased audiences by 13.2 percentage points in Q4 and 28.5 points year-on-year to grow to 455,000 listeners.
In London, LBC’s Nick Ferrari at Breakfast, which reaches 1.3 million average weekly listeners, was the number-one commercial breakfast show for reach, hours and share.
| Station | Saleshouse | Ending Dec 21 | Ending Sep 22 | Ending Dec 22 | QonQ | YonY |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BBC Radio 2 – 06.30 – 09.30am | BBC | 7495 | 7368 | 7136 | -3.1 | -4.8 |
| BBC Radio 4 – 06.00 – 09.00am | BBC | 6452 | 5925 | 6170 | 4.1 | -4.4 |
| BBC Radio 1 – 07.00 – 10.30am | BBC | 4464 | 4084 | 4265 | 4.4 | -4.5 |
| Heart Network (UK) – 06.30 – 10.00am | Global | 3860 | 3631 | 3927 | 8.2 | 1.7 |
| Capital Network (UK) – 06.00 – 10.00am | Global | 2584 | 2511 | 2683 | 6.8 | 3.8 |
| Absolute Radio Network – 06.00 – 10.00am | Bauer | 2157 | 2214 | 2179 | -1.6 | 1 |
| Greatest Hits Radio – 06.00 – 10.00am | Bauer | 1383 | 1597 | 1652 | 3.4 | 19.5 |
| Classic FM – 06.00 – 09.00am | Global | 1651 | 1603 | 1616 | 0.8 | -2.1 |
| BBC Radio 5 live – 06.00 – 09.00am | BBC | 1827 | 1355 | 1608 | 18.7 | -12 |
| Magic – 06.00 – 10.00am | Bauer | 1228 | 952 | 1160 | 21.8 | -5.5 |
| talkSPORT – 06.00 – 10.00am | talkSPORT | 1086 | 1097 | 1144 | 4.3 | 5.3 |
| Radio X Network (UK) – 06.30 – 10.00am | Global | 1173 | 1103 | 1052 | -4.6 | -10.3 |
| KISS – 07.00 – 11.00am | Bauer | 1093 | 1024 | 1041 | 1.7 | -4.8 |
| Virgin Radio Network¹ – 06.30 – 10.00am | talkSPORT | n/a | 776 | 830 | 7 | n/a |
| BBC Radio 3 – 06.30 – 09.00am | BBC | 700 | 595 | 603 | 1.3 | -13.9 |
| Planet Rock – 06.00 – 10.00am | Bauer | 576 | 574 | 568 | -1 | -1.4 |
| Hits Radio – 06.00 – 10.00am | Bauer | 354 | 402 | 455 | 13.2 | 28.5 |
| TalkRadio – 06.30 – 10.00am | talkSPORT | 287 | 273 | 268 | -1.8 | -6.6 |
| Times Radio¹ – 06.00 – 10.00am | talkSPORT | n/a | 248 | 236 | -4.8 | n/a |
| GB News Radio – 06.00 – 09.30am | GB News | n/a | 177 | 147 | -16.9 | n/a |
| Station | Saleshouse | Ending Dec 21 | Ending Sep 22 | Ending Dec 22 | QonQ | YonY |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LBC London – 07.00 – 10.00am | Global | 783 | 712 | 827 | 16.2 | 5.6 |
| Capital London – 06.00 – 10.00am | Global | 615 | 626 | 711 | 13.6 | 15.6 |
| Heart London – 06.30 – 10.00am | Global | 715 | 732 | 628 | -14.2 | -12.2 |
| Magic (London) – 06.00 – 10.00am | Bauer | 570 | 453 | 619 | 36.6 | 8.6 |
| KISS (London) – 07.00 – 11.00am | Bauer | 464 | 418 | 379 | -9.3 | -18.3 |
| Greatest Hits Radio (London) – 06.00 – 10.00am | Bauer | 333 | 264 | 316 | 19.7 | -5.1 |
| Smooth Radio London – 06.00 – 10.00am | Global | 354 | 269 | 305 | 13.4 | -13.8 |
| Capital XTRA (London) – 06.30 – 10.00am | Global | 151 | 241 | 211 | -12.4 | 39.7 |
| Radio X London – 06.30 – 10.00am | Global | 252 | 226 | 186 | -17.7 | -26.2 |
| BBC Radio London – 07.00 – 10.00am | BBC | 229 | 193 | 147 | -23.8 | -35.8 |
| LBC News (London) – 07.00 – 10.00am | Global | 130 | 149 | 143 | -4 | 10 |
| Gold London – 06.00 – 10.00am | Global | 138 | 155 | 125 | -19.4 | -9.4 |
| Premier Christian Radio – 07.00 – 09.00am | Premier Christian Radio | 54 | 15 | 14 | -6.7 | -74.1 |
