Virgin Radio has continued its downward spiral since the departure of DJ Chris Evans with its national station dropping in both reach and share in the latest set of Rajars, writes Georgina Lipscomb
The AM station saw its weekly reach drop 18.7 per cent year on year to 2.25 million while its share also fell from 1.7 to 1.1 per cent. Its FM London service saw its share fall from 3.2 per cent to 2.6, although it pulled back from 2.4 per cent last quarter.
According to the figures released yesterday, national commercial radios overall share dropped 1 percentage point to 7.2 per cent year on year, exacerbated by station Teamtalk 252 being pulled from the airwaves in July.
However, Classic FM yet again clocked up healthy figures with its year on year share increasing from 4.3 to 4.5 per cent, while TalkSport jumped 0.1 percentage point from last year to 1.7 per cent.
Meanwhile, the BBC saw its national radio stations increase share to 41.4 per cent, from 40.2 last year and from 41.3 per cent last quarter.
But beleaguered BBC Radio 1 once again suffered disappointment, with its year on year share dropping from 9.4 per cent to 8.8 although it pulled back from 8.3 in the last quarter. Sara Cox's breakfast show pulled in seven million listeners, up slightly from last quarters 6.88 million.
However, BBC Radio 4 saw its share leap from 10.7 to 11.8 year on year, while BBC Radio 2 also saw its share increase from 14.7 t0 15.2. But R2 slipped back from its record reach of 13 million in the last quarter to 12.49 million.
BBC Radio 3 clocked up a share rise of 0.1 percentage points to 1.3 per cent year on year. BBC Radio 5 Live's share increased from 4.2 last year to 4.3, but was down from 4.9 per cent in the last quarter during its World Cup coverage.
Overall, the BBC pulled in a 52.6 per cent share, up from 51.6 in the same period last year, while commercial radio fell from 46.5 to 45.3 per cent.
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