Rajar Q2 2022: BBC Radio 2 breakfast audience shrinks again

BBC Radio 2 is still the most listened-to breakfast show despite its audience shrinking three consecutive quarters, according to latest Rajar audience figures.

BBC Radio 2 Breakfast hosted by Zoe Ball, which airs between 7am and 10.30am, registered a weekly reach of 7.23 million, down 1.1% on the previous quarter.

The BBC still held the top three spots for breakfast in terms of weekly reach, with BBC Radio 4’s flagship Today programme coming in second with 6.45 million weekly listeners, a decrease of 1.6% compared to Q1 2022.

BBC Radio 1 was the only BBC station to register a slight quarter-on-quarter increase in weekly reach for its breakfast show between 6.30am and 9.30am with Greg James, increasing by 0.6% to 4.14 million.

Global occupied the top two commercial breakfast shows in the UK with weekly reach of 3.7 million for Heart Breakfast with Jamie Theakston & Amanda Holden and 2.5 million for Capital Breakfast with Roman Kemp, Sian Welby, and Sonny Jay, however, weekly reach for both went down 4.2% and 2.3% quarter-on-quarter.

Bauer’s Absolute Radio breakfast show increased its weekly reach 1.4% to 2.2 million compared to Q1 2022.

GB News Radio, whose ad sales are handled by Bauer, registered the highest quarter-on-quarter change in weekly reach going from 99,000 to 115,000 weekly reach, an increase of 16.2%.