LBC’s James O’Brien overtakes Nick Ferrari as radio audiences tune in later

[Tony Sweeney]

LBC’s James O’Brien overtakes Nick Ferrari as radio audiences tune in later
Latest figures show changed listening habits as well as commercial
stations’ appeal to younger audiences

Jim Watersonn

(Watch out for some corrections through the article.) TS.



LBC talkshow host James O’Brien has narrowly edged ahead of his
breakfast-time colleague with his lengthy critiques of Boris Johnson’s
government. Photograph: Steven May/Alamy

LBC’s left-leaning mid-morning presenter James O’Brien now has more
listeners than breakfast show host Nick Ferrari, in the latest
indication that British radio listening habits have changed
substantially during the pandemic.

For decades the breakfast show slot has been the highest-profile
programme on almost every radio station, usually garnering the most
listeners. Audiences traditionally increased as people turned on the
radio when they got up in the morning and continued listening if they
drove to work in a car, only to fall away after 8am as they turned up at
work.
Yet the substantial increase in working from home during the pandemic,
increased listening on the move via smartphones and the popularity of
presenters with particularly strong personal followings are now upending
this longstanding industry rule – with audiences peaking much later in
the morning.
The change is particularly symbolic at LBC, which over the last decade
has transformed itself from a London-only station known for phone-in
shows into a national speech radio station with consistently rising
ratings. Official RAJAR listener figures, released on Thursday, show
that Ferrari, the longstanding breakfast show host known for his
bruising tabloid style, now reaches 1.295m listeners for his 7am-10am
programme. By comparison, O’Brien has edged narrowly ahead with 1.307m
listeners for his lengthy critiques of Boris Johnson’s government during
his 10am to 1pm slot.
Elsewhere, the listening figures for the final three months of 2021 show
the audiences for major national BBC radio stations remained largely
flat. Radio 2 remains the most popular station in the country with
almost 15m listeners a week, while Zoë Ball has slightly rebuilt the
audience for her Radio 2 breakfast show to 7.5m listeners – still the
most popular breakfast show in the country but attracting fewer
listeners than Ken Bruce in the station’s mid-morning slot.
Yet commercial radio stations continue to gain ground on the BBC, with
advertising-supported outlets already substantially outperforming the
public broadcaster among listeners aged under 45.
At the same time, the number of younger listeners using streaming apps
on their phones to listen to radio has continued to increase rapidly. As
a result, the BBC is increasingly trying to future-proof its audience by
pushing audio listeners towards its BBC Sounds app, and is putting
episodes of popular shows such as Desert Islands Discs exclusively on
the app for four weeks after broadcast.
Rupert Murdoch’s TimesRadio, the upmarket speech radio station launched
last summer, was one of the biggest losers as it shed a fifth of its
audience since the previous quarter and dipped to 502,000 listeners a
week. It was overtaken by its more bellicose sister station talkRadio,
which now attracts a record audience, aided by debates about whether it
is possible to grow concrete.
In commercial music radio, Heart remained the biggest brand with 10.2m
listeners across its stations, while the Chris Moyles-fronted Radio X
grew its audience substantially to 2.1m listeners a week.
The national Hits network, the national contemporary chart music
network, lost 8% of its audience to reach 5.6m listeners.
Radio audience research was suspended for most of the pandemic due to
lockdown restrictions, meaning there are no comparable year-on-year
figures. Most of the listening figures are collected by members of the
public keeping diaries of their listening, although some data is now
collected through a mobile phone app that monitors background noise and
checks if it is a radio station.
 This article was updated on 3 February 2022 to correct when the BBC is
putting episodes of some shows, including Desert Island Discs, online;
an earlier version said this was happening pre-broadcast. The
description of the Hits network has been changed.
… The Guardian