RAJAR Q1 2012: Breakfast

This analysis is comparing the weekly reach of the breakfast shows of the London stations and not the time slots.

National

Radio listeners in the UK continue to favour Chris Evans’ BBC Radio 2 breakfast show, which enjoyed a 4.2% QoQ rise in weekly reach in Q1 2012. It has been a good week for Evans, who also picked up Music Radio Personality of the Year at the Sony awards.

His breakfast show remains well ahead of BBC Radio 2’s stablemates Radio 1 and Radio 4 with a total weekly reach of more than 9.2 million listeners.

Chris Moyles and his team at BBC Radio 1 recorded a small loss during Q1, down -1.9% QoQ and -5.5% YoY, taking its total down to 7.1 million listeners. It was reported in yesterday’s Guardian that Moyles is eyeing up a job at BBC Radio 2 presenting a 1980s pop music show, which has prompted speculation about his departure from the Radio 1 breakfast show. RadioToday has also signalled that Moyles is set to play villain King Herod in the stage musical Jesus Christ Superstar.

BBC Radio 4’s Today programme posted negative results both quarterly and yearly – down -6.8% and -5.2% respectively. As a result, the show’s total reach has fallen below the seven million mark to 6.66 million.

BBC Radio FIVE LIVE also recorded a substantial YoY loss, down -6.6%. However, the station enjoyed a 2.0% QoQ boost in the first three months of 2012, taking its total reach to almost 2.6 million.

Classic FM also saw a small QoQ rise, up 1.0% but is down -6.0% on Q1 2011. talkSPORT, meanwhile, saw its reach fall during the quarter – down -0.8% QoQ and -1.7% YoY.

The real success stories in the National Breakfast market were Kiss UK and the Total Absolute Radio Network. Kiss UK enjoyed positive QoQ and YoY results, up 5.4% and 6.5% respectively, while Absolute posted a 4.2% QoQ rise and a significant 19.6% YoY increase.

London

In London, 95.8 Capital Radio was still the favourite in Q1 with more than 1.26 million listeners tuning in between 6am and 10am. Lisa Snowdon now presents the show with Dave Berry, who took over from the long-standing Capital DJ Johnny Vaughan after Christmas. Capital breakfast’s listening figures have fallen over the quarter, down -4.1%, although it is still up 3.1% YoY.

Bauer’s Magic 105.4 saw listening figures dwindle in Q1, as did Kiss100FM, Heart 106.2 FM and LBC 97.3. Magic’s breakfast show posted a -6.5% QoQ and -5.5% YoY decline; Kiss a -10.5% QoQ and -1.4% YoY drop; Heart a -6.8% QoQ and -11.7% YoY decrease; and LBC a -11% QoQ and -4.8% YoY fall.

However, Bauer’s Magic still sits in second place in London behind Capital with a total weekly reach of 793,000 listeners, while Kiss’ Rickie and Melvin breakfast show remains in third place with a total reach of 750,000 listeners. Kiss FM’s breakfast show claimed the best Breakfast Show of the Year prize at this week’s Sony awards.

Once again, the Total Absolute Radio Network was the real success story in the capital, up 12.2% QoQ and 6.6% YoY. Its total weekly reach in London now stands at 532,000. Absolute’s Christian O’Connell Breakfast Show also took home the silver award at the Sonys.

Smooth Radio (London) also saw a significant rise, up 64.4% QoQ and 17.2% YoY to 286,000 listeners.

MediaTel has PowerPoint presentations available to download, featuring pre-prepared market breakdown graphs for the RAJAR data release – click here.