Theakston wins breakfast crown as Heart dominates London

by Daniel Farey-Jones, Brand Republic 01-Feb-07, 08:25

LONDON - Heart is decisively winning the battle for listeners among the top three in London commercial radio, taking a sizeable 7.1% share and stealing the title of most popular breakfast show from Capital.

The October-December Rajar figures for London show the Chrysalis-owned station has pulled away from second-placed Magic, while Capital continues to languish in third.

Capital's breakfast DJ Johnny Vaughan, who this week had his contract renewed by GCap, has finally been overtaken by rival Jamie Theakston.

In the previous quarter, the gap between them was just 14,000 listeners, but the new figures give Theakston 948,000 fans to Vaughan's 813,000. Magic's Neil Fox was placed third with 733,000.

Theakston's show attracted 180,000 more listeners this quarter, chiming with his station's overall surge in reach from 1.71m to 1.85m.

Emap's Magic also had a good quarter, with its reach up from 1.64m to 1.79m and its share up from 5.3% to 5.5%. But Heart had the edge in listener hours, and its share climbed from 6.1% to 7.1%.

Chrysalis backed the station with a seven-figure ad campaign from the end of October, featuring hula hoops and the tagline "Heart - you can't help but feel good".

If third-placed Capital had been expecting a boost from its October return to marketing activity, it did not materialise. However, its popularity at least stopped declining this quarter. Its reach and share were unchanged at 1.46m and 4.7% respectively.

Outside the top three, Emap's relaunch of Kiss in September paved the way for a good quarter, with reach up from 1.32m to 1.44m and share up from 3.8% to 3.9%.

Virgin, which recently lost chief executive Fru Hazlitt to Capital, notched up a small rise in listeners from 1.12m to 1.16m while its share climbed from 3.4% to 3.6%.

Chrysalis' second London station, the news and talk-focused LBC, maintained its recent strong showing with reach up from 594,000 to 624,000. Its share was down slightly from 3.4% to 3.3%, but it is still outperforming BBC London, which climbed from 1.4% to 2%.

Next came GCap's Kiss rival Choice with a share of 2.8%. This is up from 2.1% last quarter, while its reach is up to 595,000 from 474,000.

However, GCap's Xfm fared poorly and was the only commercial station apart from Premier Christian Radio to decline in terms of listeners, down from 551,000 to 479,000, and share, down 1.6% to 1.3%.

BBC stations did not have an easy time in the capital this quarter. Radio 1 was down in reach from 1.42m to 1.29m and down in share from 5.3% to 4.8%. Radio 2's reach was steady but its share fell from 11% to 10.4% and Radio 4's share fell from 16.1% to 14.4%.