From peaking at 6.2m last summer, Classic FM's audience has been declining, dropping to 4.7m in the latest figures for May 24-August 22, 2004.
Despite falling significantly in the second half of 2003, Virgin FM's audience has remained steady at 3.3m in 2004.
The only other national commercial station, TalkSPORT, also saw its audience down slightly in the year, from 6.2m to 6m.
National BBC stations suffered too, with the worst drops recorded by market leader Radio 2, which was down 13.9%, Radio 4 was down by a 13.5% while youth station Radio 1 suffered slightly less falling 12.2%.
Kelvin MacKenzie, chairman of TalkSPORT-owner The Wireless Group, has long pushed the Gfk RadioControl system following dissatisfaction with the diary and interview-based methods employed by Rajar for measuring radio audiences.
The electronic Gfk system has been trailed in Switzerland for the past four years and also measures TV audiences. It uses a wristwatch that records audio 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and measures a variety of media at the same time.
CNBC, the European business television broadcaster, recently cancelled its subscription to Barb in favour of Gfk. CNBC was unhappy that Barb did not measure workplace TV viewing.
A CNBC spokeswoman said: "Barb doesn't fulfil our needs at all; we saw a seven-to-eight times uplift using Gfk because Barb only measures watching in the home." The Gfk system also measures figures outside of the home.
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