Grim for Grimshaw as Nick's Radio 1 Breakfast Show pulls in lowest ratings in a decade

Nick Grimshaw's audience has plummeted, leaving Radio 1 limping behind Radio 4 in breakfast ratings
File photo dated 05/02/13 of Presenter Nick Grimshaw who has seen his audience plummet even further, as he led the Radio 1 Breakfast Show to its lowest audience for a decade. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Issue date: Thursday October 24, 2013. He has shed another 300,000 listeners and has now slumped by more than 1.1 milllion since he took over the programme a year ago, and it is now 1.2 million behind Radio 4's highbrow early programme Today. Grimshaw has 5.58 million listeners each week for the flagship show, according to the latest figures from research body Rajar, compared with 6.73 million a year ago when his predecessor Chris Moyles was hosting his final shows. And he is down 1.5 million compared to Moyles's audience for the equivalent period in 2011. Radio 1 - whose overall audience has dipped below that of Radio 4 once again - has not had a breakfast show audience so low since 2003 when Sara Cox was about to bow out of her stint on the programme and had 5.5 million listeners. See PA story SHOWBIZ Radio. Photo credit should read: Ian West/PA Wire
Agency24 October 2013
The Weekender

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Figures show Nick Grimshaw's audience has plummeted, leading the Radio 1 Breakfast Show to its lowest ratings for ten years.

He has shed another 300,000 listeners and has now slumped by more than 1.1 milllion since he took over the programme a year ago, and it is now 1.2 million behind Radio 4's agenda-setting early programme Today.

Grimshaw has 5.58 million listeners each week for the flagship show, according to the latest figures from research body Rajar, compared with 6.73 million a year ago when his predecessor Chris Moyles was hosting his final shows.

Dave Benett

And he is down 1.5 million compared to Moyles's audience for the equivalent period in 2011. Radio 1 - whose overall audience has dipped below that of Radio 4 once again - has not had a breakfast show audience so low since 2003 when Sara Cox was about to bow out of her stint on the programme and had 5.5 million listeners.

Grimshaw now trails his Radio 2 rival Chris Evans by 3.8 million listeners, a huge change from four years ago when the breakfast shows for the two stations were almost neck and neck.

Evans, who is thought to have been a beneficiary of Grimshaw's woes, now has 9.35 million listeners - himself down 400,000 in a year. Today, which recently welcomed new presenter Mishal Husain, is at 6.81 million, which is a drop of 130,000 in 12 months.

Grimshaw - who took over a year ago, replacing Moyles who had been in the slot for eight-and-a-half years - was recruited to the station in a bid to reduce the age profile of its listenership, something the BBC Trust had been keen to ensure.

Radio 2 continues to have the UK's biggest audience with 14.94 million listeners each week, up a million in a year. Radio 1 has 10.83 million listeners, marginally behind Radio 4's 10.87 million.

Helen Boaden, director of BBC Radio, said: "Radio 2 is a remarkable success story and continues to reach huge audiences whilst never failing to surprise and amaze with the diversity of its output."

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