Has Radio 4’s ‘wokeness’ cost it a million listeners?

BBC Radio 4 has suffered a drastic drop in audience numbers while Radio 2 has lost listeners to new rivals, industry figures revealed yesterday.

In the first quarter of the year Radio 4 posted its lowest listening figures in 16 years – having shed 1.2million listeners in 12 months – with the flagship Today programme getting what are thought to be its worst figures since 1999.

An industry source suggested Radio 4’s attempts to ‘modernise’ may be turning off its core audience, with shows such as Today perceived to be airing ‘woke’ content. Radio 2, which has been hit by controversy over the departures of a string of older presenters, lost 121,000 weekly listeners.

But two rivals that are targeting disaffected Radio 2 listeners – Boom Radio and Greatest Hits Radio, which poached Ken Bruce – both posted strong growth.

Boom saw its audience grow by 119 per cent in the year to 635,000 weekly listeners. The Greatest Hits Network enjoyed a 27 per cent rise to 5.3million weekly listeners.

The results come from Rajar, the UK’s radio audience measurement body. Its figures show that Radio 4 overall lost more than 11 per cent of its audience in the year, falling from 10.6million in the first quarter of last year to 9.4million in the same period this year.

This was its worst performance since 2007. The Today programme lost 792,000 listeners, or 12 per cent on the same period the year before. A senior industry source said: ‘The Today programme has a more “modern” feel – and an editorial agenda which maybe does not square with its audience, average age 59.

‘I hate the word “woke”, but some will see it in that territory.’