Host Christian O'Connell and sidekick Chris Smith have campaigned for listeners to help them move up the ranks, and this quarter their wishes of reaching the top 10 were granted, with a move from number 11 to 10th place.
The move up the rankings has come as other big names enter the breakfast radio battle, with the likes of Johnny Vaughan and Chris Moyles debuting on the morning airwaves.
The Xfm show now stands at 334,000 listeners, up by 18% from the last quarter. In London, the show also hit a record with a reach of 297,000, up by 40,000 on last quarter, giving the show an extra 80,000 listeners year on year.
However, whether Vaughan, who took the reins in April, and his smooth approach makes an impression on Chris Tarrant's listeners will not be seen until next quarter. The loss of listeners at Capital has been stemmed with the show's audience up this quarter, adding 133,000 extra listeners to take it to 1.38m. The station has recently put a £1.75m promotional spend behind the Johnny Vaughan breakfast show to shore up its lead over rival Heart 106.2 FM.
Heart's breakfast show, fronted by Harriet Scott and Jono Coleman, lost almost 40,000 listeners, down to 833,000 from 872,000.
London talk station LBC 97.3 managed an increase of 56% over the year, beating BBC Radio London. New LBC breakfast DJ Nick Ferrari has doubled ratings in three months.
Following a difficult year for BBC Radio 1, Moyles' aggressive approach is paying off and helping to restore the fortunes of the station, up 400,000 on the quarter and 100,000 on the year. The show attracts an audience nationally of 7.18m up by 672,000 on the last quarter under Sara Cox who was shunted to drive time. Last year, the show dropped below 10m for the first time.
Sister BBC station Radio 2 continues to dominate breakfast, with 7.72m people tuning in to Terry Wogan in the period to March 2004. This was only marginally down from last year, when Wogan drew in his highest audience to date at 7.8m
Kiss FM's Bam Bam breakfast continues to be the third biggest breakfast show in London with 766,000 listeners, a 7% rise quarter on quarter.
Virgin's Pete and Geoff breakfast show is returning to form after a dramatic fall in the last quarter. The show was up 28% from the last period, attracting 588,000 listeners in London. It has added 75,000 new listeners and has an audience of 1.25m nationwide.
If you have an opinion on this or any other issue raised on Brand Republic, join the debate in the .
.jpg)
.jpg)