Fewer people are waking up to Terry Wogan and Chris Moyles after the BBC’s star breakfast DJs lost a combined 872,000 listeners in the second quarter this year.

Wake Up To Wogan shed 357,000 listeners bringing its weekly audience down to 7.74 million from a record high of 8.1 million in the first quarter, according to figures from Rajar, the official industry body. However, it still remains the UK’s most popular radio show.

Meanwhile, more than half a million listeners tuned out of the Chris Moyles Show on Radio 1 - the first time the DJ’s ratings have dropped in 18 months - bringing his audience down to 7.21 million listeners, down from 7.72 million in the first quarter and 7.26 million last year.

The figures, published today, show the BBC continues to dominate the airwaves with a total audience share of 55.5 per cent. However, its share has dropped from 56.8 per cent in the first quarter.

The BBC’s lead has slipped to 13.1 percentage points, as rival commercial radio grew its audience share from 41.1 per cent in the first quarter to 42.4 per cent.

Radio 2 lost 634,000 listeners, a drop of 4.7 per cent compared to the first three months of the year. The stations total weekly audience fell to 12.99 million listeners, bringing its audience share down from a record 16.6 per cent in the first quarter to 16 per cent.

Meanwhile, Radio 1’s weekly reach fell by 3.5 per cent in the second quarter as it lost 383,000 listeners, bringing its weekly audience to 10.68 million, equal to a 10 per cent share of the audience.

By comparison, BBC Radio 3 saw listener numbers rise by 6.4 per cent compared to the last quarter, boosting its numbers to 1.9 million and giving it a market share of 1.2 per cent.

Radio 4 remained relatively stable, falling 0.3 per cent compared with the first three months of the year to 9.53 million listeners. However, the figure was up 0.5 per cent on the same time last year.

Classic FM, the most popular commercial station, saw its audience drop to 5.4 million listeners, a fall of 2.7 per cent compared to the first three months, and 4.1 per cent compared to last year.

Rajar’s figures showed that overall 45.1 million listeners now tune in to a radio station each week, a drop of 300,000 on the previous quarter's figure of 45.4 million.

They also reveal that the number of people listening to the radio via mobile phones continues to rise. In the last quarter 12.2 per cent of listeners aged over 15 tuned in via their mobiles, compared with 8.9 per cent this time last year.

Andrew Harrison, chief executive of commercial radio body RadioCentre said: “Today’s figures are very encouraging for our sector and it is good to see that we have pulled back some of our market share.”

A spokeswoman for the BBC said: “We are not concerned about the results of one quarter. One quarter does not make a trend and the figures we are seeing are closer to normal off the back of the record listening figures we saw last quarter.”

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