Grimshaw’s Radio 1 Breakfast Show hit by audience slump

THE Radio 1 Breakfast Show has been defended by BBC management after figures showed that it had shed hundreds of thousands of listeners since the start of the year.

The show, presented by Nick Grimshaw, has recorded its second lowest audience figures since current records began. The programme lost 600,000 listeners in the first quarter of 2018.

Grimshaw drew 5.1million listeners a week in the first three months of the year, compared with 5.7million a week in the last quarter of 2017, according to the audience research body Rajar.

Last year the show plunged to its lowest listening figures since Grimshaw took over the slot, dropping below five million in the third quarter, the first time in his five-year tenure.

Ben Cooper, the controller of BBC Radio 1, 1Xtra & Asian Network, said: “Radio 1 remains the biggest and most relevant youth station in the UK, with over a third of all 15- to 24-year-olds listening each week.”

Chris Evans also saw a drop in his listening figures in the first three months of 2018, with his Radio 2 breakfast show drawing 9.1 million a week, down from 9.4million.