Kiss wins over London’s Heart at breakfast

Bauer’s Kiss 100 station has overtaken Global’s Heart to become the third most listened to breakfast show of all the commercial radio stations in London, according to the latest Rajar data.

Kiss Breakfast

A quarter after posting its highest ever total listener numbers, the dance music station has knocked Global’s Heart Radio into fourth slot in the capital.

The breakfast show actually lost 15,000 listeners in the quarter to the end of June to 735,000, but its rival Heart’s listener decline was steeper, shedding 25,000 to 734,0000.

Steve Parkinson, managing director of Bauer Radio London, said the success of Rickie, Melvin and Charlie’s breakfast show was largely due to the station creating more “sticky” features such as phone-ins, mixed with Facebook and Twitter conversations.

He added: “After the show listeners can also download a 5 minute ‘Kiss Breakfast Takeaway’ video featuring the best behind the scenes visual footage from that day’s show.  This is all part of the ‘hear it – see it – share it’ principles being embedded in all parts of Kiss by programme director Andy Roberts.”

Global’s Capital breakfast show with Lisa Snowdon and Dave Berry still dominates London’s morning listening. The programme pulled in 1.16 milion listeners, up from the 1.14 million it attracted last year in the same period but down on the 1.27 million who tuned in last quarter.

Bauer’s Magic boasts the second most listened to radio show in London, hosted by Neil Fox and Verity Greere. It drew in 760,000 listeners in the quarter, down from the 793,000 last quarter and the 845,000 listeners counted the previous year.

In terms of overall listening figures, all the major London stations reported a loss quarter on quarter.

Bauer’s Parkinson, however, questioned the figures: “In London 13 million hours have disappeared from the London market, which is strange and needs further investigation.  People don’t suddenly stop listening to that extent, so it may be one of those Rajar oddities that can happen from time to time.”

Of the biggest four stations, Kiss 100 suffered the steepest quarterly decline, down 11.1 per cent to 1.74 million.

Sister station Magic fared better and was down just 0.6 per cent quarter on quarter to 1.95 million.

The biggest station by listener share Capital was down 8.7 per cent quarter on quarter to 2.07 million, while Heart shed 7.3 per cent of its listeners in the quarter to 1.798 million.

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