Radio 5 Live loses nearly half a million listeners

BBC Radio 5 Live has lost nearly half a million listeners in a year as sports fans turn elsewhere.

The station – which devotes huge swathes of airtime to football and rugby – now gets fewer than 5.07million listeners every week, down nearly 8 per cent from more than 5.5million a year ago.

The downturn comes amid fierce competition from sports websites, Twitter and illegal video streams of games available online.

Radio 5 Live’s breakfast show, presented by Nicky Campbell and Rachel Burden, lost 100,000 listeners year-on-year in the latest figures, released every quarter by research firm Rajar.

However, the BBC yesterday insisted that the station is ‘performing well’.

A spokesman said: ‘Just last week, the station won six gold awards at the ARIAs [Audio and Radio Industry Awards].’

Elsewhere, Radio 1’s breakfast host Nick Grimshaw’s figures fell below 5million for the first time. Radio 4’s Today programme – which attracted nearly 7.66million listeners in the run up to the general election – now has an audience of just 7.06million a week.