Photograph: Mark Allen/BBC/PA
Nick Grimshaw will be breathing a sigh of relief after adding almost 350,000 listeners in the three months to the end of June, clawing BBC Radio 1 back from its worst breakfast show ratings in 12 years.
Grimshaw attracted 5.84 million listeners a week to his show in the second quarter, 343,000 more than the 5.5 million in the first three months of the year, the lowest audience since he succeeded Chris Moyles three years ago.
The small boost gives Grimshaw a sliver of breathing room after setting the lowest breakfast audience BBC Radio 1 has recorded since Sara Cox in her final three months in the job in 2003.
Grimshaw’s mini-recovery helped BBC Radio 1’s overall audience to climb by 737,000 listeners compared to the first quarter to an average of 10.4 million per week.
The 7.6% rise marked a turnaround from an 11-year low of 9.7 million listeners reported in the official Rajar figures for the first quarter of the year.
Sister digital station 1Xtra also recovered from a poor first quarter, with a 14.2% rise in listeners to 958,000.
The BBC repeated its mantra that 30-year-old Grimshaw forms part of a strategy to attract younger listeners, pointing out that it is significantly extending its appeal on digital platforms such as YouTube which are not measured by Rajar.
“This is great news for Grimmy and 1Xtra, however Rajar only tells part of the Radio 1 story as it continues to innovate in reaching new audiences for the BBC in different ways,” said Ben Cooper, the controller of Radio 1 and 1Xtra. “I’m delighted that we are also averaging over one million requests a month on the Radio 1 iPlayer channel and over one million views a day on YouTube. Radio 1 will continue to bring new music, new presenters and new innovations to our young audience.”
Radio 2 was the only other network among the BBC’s main stations to show an increase in listeners, up 0.4% quarter-on-quarter to 15.1 million.
Its breakfast DJ, Chris Evans, reversed a slump in the first quarter to add 238,000 listeners, giving his show an average audience of 9.7 million a week in the second quarter.
Radio 4’s audience fell by 2.9% to 10.5 million, as breakfast listenership for the Today programme dropped by 384,000 to 6.6 million.
Radio 3 continued to fall, losing a further 9.1% of listeners to 1.89 million, as news and sport station Radio 5 Live also continued to decline, down 7.6% to 5.3 million.
Its sister station, 5 Live Sports Xtra, continues to surge ahead, rising 21.4% to 1.62 million listeners.
BBC 6 Music, the UK’s most popular digital-only station, slipped by 0.4% quarter-on-quarter to 2.05 million listeners in the three months to the end of June.
