Listeners desert BBC’s Grimshaw

NICK Grimshaw’s BBC Radio 1 Breakfast Show has lost more than 600,000 listeners, just months after its lowest ratings since records began 26 years ago.

Overall, the number of BBC Radio 1 weekly listeners fell from 9.8million to 9.5million, according to research firm Rajar.

Grimshaw, paid between £350,000 and £399,999, has seen his weekly listener total fall from 5.7million in the last quarter of 2017 to 5.1million in the first three months of this year. It comes after the show’s ratings plummeted to 4.94million between July and September 2017. When Grimshaw replaced Chris Moyles in 2012, the show averaged about 7million.

BBC Radio 1 controller Ben Cooper said it ‘remains the biggest and most relevant youth station in the UK’.

Chris Evans’s Radio 2 show saw weekly ratings drop from 9.4million to 9.1million.

Meanwhile, Classic FM’s Drive show has increased its weekly listeners to 1.94million, more than all of BBC Radio 3.