UK Edition
Breakfast has been the big draw for Britain’s major radio stations for decades. From Wake Up to Wogan to Chris Evans, ratings peaked before 10am onwards as “listeners of habit” tuned in without fail.
But the new norm of working from home may have upended that habit: the second suite of official listener figures to be released since the Covid pandemic struck suggest people are tuning in a little later, while the rush hour peaks are also falling away.
Ken Bruce’s mid-morning show on BBC Radio 2, for instance, is pulling in a million more weekly listeners than Zoe Ball’s breakfast slot, at 8.7m against 7.5m. Ball was pulling in 8.1m listeners at the beginning of 2020, just before the pandemic hit the UK.
At phone-in station LBC, meanwhile, James O’Brien’s 10am to 1pm show has slightly overtaken Nick Ferrari’s breakfast slot, at just over 1.3m weekly listeners against 1.29m, according to figures from Rajar for the final three months of 2021.
It is a trend mirrored by the research body’s survey of more than 1,000 listeners between Nov and Dec last year, which shows live radio audiences peaked at around 8.15am on weekdays, before gradually tailing off. In the pre-pandemic survey in early 2020, the peak was much sharper and an early evening drivetime surge was visible - but no longer. The fresh data uses a new methodology, including more data sources such as from smartphones, meaning they are not directly comparable to previous years.
Ratings for the major breakfast shows still wane below pre-pandemic levels. Radio 4’s flagship Today programme is also down to 6.7m listeners, compared to 7m just before Covid. Greg James on Radio 1 had 4.5m listeners, up from 4.3m in the third quarter of last year but down from 4.9m pre-pandemic.
Despite the declines, not all is lost for breakfast radio. James still attracts a 6.1pc share of hours listened nationally, above the station average of 5.4pc. Former BBC heavyweight Chris Moyles, meanwhile, posted an all-time record for his Radio X show, which began in 2015, of 1.2m listeners.
The landscape is shifting, however. “Before Covid there were two main peaks - breakfast and drivetime," a Rajar spokesman said. "That doesn't really exist now. There are still peaks in the morning but at a later time, audiences tend to stay throughout the day and there's not really a drivetime peak as such.”
It remains to be seen whether this poses a fundamental threat to stations’ business models, with bosses having invested heavily in breakfast. Zoe Ball is paid £980,000 for her Radio 2 slow - the second-highest known earner at the BBC - while Amanda Holden was signed by Heart for a reported £3m in 2019 to replace the music network's local breakfast shows.
Matt Deegan, a radio consultant, says: “What some of the radio stations have done, such as Radio 1, is they’ve moved their breakfast show hours later so Greg James is on until 10.30am - that’s sensible, picking up that you want your big talent on at the popular times, with a lot of production resource and promotion and good content in.
“The question is whether they need to do that long term or just for the next few months. I think it will be long term and it's just a realisation that there is a broader way that people are changing habits and radio needs to reflect that.”
It is a fresh challenge set against the longer-term slow decline in radio listening, accelerated by the pandemic as podcasts boom and the vast array of audio and video streaming apps compete for attention. Radio and television are increasingly merging, with GB News available on DAB and Talkradio streaming live from its studio. The BBC repurposes some of its radio shows and podcasts on its news channel, too.
The emergence of social media as a primary route to audiences is providing impetus to the trend. Experts believe it will accelerate as hybrid or home-working becomes the norm, with workers opting for more convenient streaming services, social media scrolling and personal playlists.
“Radio has benefitted from listeners of habit, but people are now starting their media day later because we don't need to get up early in the morning to commute to work,” says James Cridland, a radio expert.
“Now we can stay at home and play with electronic gadgets and discover all these different types of content.”
When it comes to radio as a whole, the BBC’s weekly reach dipped compared to the previous quarter to 31.4m with all the stations bar Radio 2 facing a decline in listeners, according to Rajar. Radio 2, the most popular station in the country, rose 1.8pc to 15m.
Auntie’s national commercial rivals collectively rose, reaching 24.6m. While Times Radio’s audience collapsed to 502,000 a week, it’s News UK sibling Talkradio is celebrating record figures.
New players have joined the game to target the older generation now more associated with radio. Boom Radio, the first station in the UK specifically aimed at baby boomers, is gaining listener loyalty and now enjoys 2.4m weekly hours, up from 1.8m last quarter.
Other experts take a less pessimistic view, cautiously confident that radio has actually benefited from most people now consuming it via digital radios, smartphones and smart speakers rather than cars. This, they say, allows people to control what they consume, while still using stations to discover new songs and ideas. It’s a listener’s market.
As Cridland puts it: “I wouldn't write radio's obituary yet - it still remains very popular in the morning and evening, even if the peak has moved later in the day.”