Love for Heart means disaster for Capital

Capital Radio used to be Londoners' favourite. But station chiefs were today forced to confess those days are over - amid its most disastrous ratings ever.

Figures released today show that, for the first time, Capital has slumped into third place behind commercial rivals Heart and Magic.

Its share of the London audience is 5.1 per cent, while its listeners tune in to a total of 11.3 million hours per week.

A year ago, when Capital was in top place with a 7.2 per cent market share and its listeners tuned in to 15.5 million hours a week.

Heart is number one now with a 6.4 per cent audience share and 14.3 million listening hours. Magic is in second place with 5.3 per cent and 11.8 million hours.

Capital's managing director Keith Pringle said: "It's very disappointing. We're having a good look at the station and have started to put in place some plans to sharpen up output. We're looking at all aspects of the music we play."

In terms of the number of people listening in an average week, Capital is still second place, with 1.8 million against Heart's 1.9 million and Magic's 1.7 million. However, for a commercial station this is less significant than market share and listening hours.

Johnny Vaughan had the worst figures ever for Capital's breakfast slot, well below the crucial million mark at 890,000. He is still London's number one on a commercial station at that time, but only just ahead of Heart - where Jamie Theakston has piled on 163,000 listeners in three months, taking him to 883,000.

One industry insider said Capital had "lost its way" with a "confused" playlist and a laddish line-up of DJs who had cost the station its vital female audience.

The source added: "Johnny Vaughan is a pretty good show, but it's not a Capital show. With him and Richard Bacon as DJs it's become a male station, but Capital's audience is traditionally very female.

"Capital's music is too inconsistent. If you tune into Heart or Virgin within seconds you can tell what station it is. With Capital you haven't got a clue any more."

Pringle insisted any talk of axing Vaughan was "nonsense" and added: "This is the end of one boxing round and it's been a bad round for us but we're coming out fighting."

Elsewhere, Xfm had its most listeners ever, at 628,000 up from 572,000 last year.