Bauer Media’s Kiss has toppled its Global rival Capital to become the number one commercial station in London for the first time.
The dance music station pulled in 1.91 million listeners in the final three months of last year, leapfrogging Capital which fell back to 1.87 million, according to the latest Rajar figures published on Thursday.
Kiss stayed ahead of Global’s Heart, in third place in London with 1.78 million listeners, and overtook sister station Magic, which slipped back to 1.76 million.
It is understood to be only the second time in a decade that Kiss has had more listeners than Capital.
Capital lost 13.3% of its audience year on year, with a 12.6% fall at its sister station, Capital Xtra, the station rebranded from Choice.
Kiss’s digital sister station Kisstory was among the biggest risers among the national commercial networks, up 13.4% year on year to 1.05 million. The other Kiss station, Kiss Fresh, had an audience of 457,000.
But there were double-digit year-on-year declines for Global’s Gold network, down 20.5% to 1.08 million, Bauer’s The Hits, down 10.5% to 814,000, and another Bauer station, Kerrang!, down 11.5% to 904,000.
Elsewhere, Global’s Classic FM was up 7.1% on the previous quarter but down marginally year on year, to 5.57 million.
UTV Media’s TalkSport was down 6.4% on the same period in 2013, to just over 3 million, while the entire Absolute Radio network, owned by Bauer, had 3.89 million listeners, down 2.8% on the quarter but up 9.8% year on year.
