Zoe Ball's BBC Radio 2 breakfast show has lost 1 million weekly listeners since she replaced Chris Evans as presenter of the UK's most popular breakfast programme. Ball, who took over in January 2019, now attracts an average of 8.1 million listeners per week, down from the 9.1 million Evans drew in the final quarter of 2018.
Ball admitted in a recent interview on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs that she takes the listener decline personally. 'You kind of pretend it is not, but then the listening figures come in and your face is 'on the tin', so I do take it completely to heart,' she said.
Overall, BBC Radio 2 lost a small number of listeners quarter on quarter, to 14.3 million, and has shed 1 million listeners over the past year. Meanwhile, Chris Evans' rival digital-only Virgin Radio show has grown to attract 1.12 million listeners, more than Ball has lost.
BBC Radio 4's Today programme also saw a decline, with 191,000 fewer listeners in the first quarter of 2020 compared to the final quarter of 2019, dropping to 6.97 million weekly listeners. The figures do not yet reflect the impact of the coronavirus lockdown, which began in late March.
In contrast, BBC Radio 1 managed to reverse a long-term decline, increasing its audience by over 100,000 to 8.9 million weekly listeners. The station's head of programmes, Aled Haydn Jones, said: 'Radio is such an important part of British life. We are able to be creative in the ways we innovate for our audience, wherever they may be.'
Commercial station LBC saw its audience rise 2.2% to 2.78 million, a 47-year high, though its London audience fell by 6.2%. Online listening, particularly via smart speakers, grew to 14% of all listening, up by more than a fifth year on year.
