The latest Rajar figures for the three months to March 25, show that 10.9m people tuned into the station that was, until recently, synonymous with the names of housewives' favourites such as Tony Blackburn and David Hamilton. The figure adds 200,000 listeners to the station's listenership since the last quarter.
In contrast Radio 1, the BBC's youth station, reported a successive nosedive in the quarterly ratings with just 10.3m listeners, down by 980,000.
Radio 2's rise began five years ago when Jim Moir, a former BBC head of light entertainment, was brought into to turn the station's fortunes around. The line-up now comprises a much broader mix of DJs and music, and is home to such names as Jonathan Ross, Steve Wright, Mark Lamarr, Jools Holland and Terry Wogan.