Johnny Vaughan's 95.8 Capital FM breakfast show has returned to the number one spot in London as Magic 105.4's Neil Fox tumbled into third place.
Vaughan's breakfast show had an average weekly audience of 862,000 listeners between 6am and 9am in the third quarter of this year, according to official Rajar audience figures published today.
This put him ahead of both Jamie Theakston and Harriet Scott on Heart 106.2, who averaged 768,000 listeners, and London's former number one breakfast DJ, Magic's Neil Fox, who had 732,000 listeners.
Vaughan, who broadcasts from 6am to 10am, had an average of 987,000 listeners when the extra hour of his show is taken into account.
Bauer Radio's Magic 105.4 remains the biggest London commercial station, but only just - with the big gains in terms of audience share at Global Radio's 95.8 Capital FM.
Magic had 1.88 million listeners in the third quarter of this year, down 120,000 on the previous quarter. The Bauer station's audience share tumbled from 7.4% to 5.8% over the same period.
Magic remained the capital's most popular station in terms of weekly reach, ahead of Global Radio's Heart 106.2, which had 1.78 million listeners, and 95.8 Capital FM, which had an average weekly audience of 1.59 million.
However, the battle in terms of audience share - which takes into account how long each listener tunes in to a station - was much closer.
Magic, with 5.8%, was only a whisker ahead of Heart, which had 5.7% of the audience - down from 6.2% a year ago.
Global's 95.8 Capital FM has grown its share of the market to 5.4% from 4.7% 12 months ago under its new owner. Global bought Capital's parent company, GCap Media, earlier this year.
But while Magic retained its number one position in the London market, its breakfast DJ Neil Fox did not.
Vaughan's return to the top of the London breakfast show ratings comes at the end of a difficult few months for his show.
His Capital breakfast co-host and former Big Breakfast co-presenter Denise Van Outen left in June just six months into a 12-month contract.
Van Outen has since been replaced by Vaughan's full-time sidekick, Lisa Snowdon, his fourth co-presenter on the show he has hosted since 2004.
Vaughan's audience of 862,000 was up on 772,000 the previous quarter but down on 880,000 a year ago.
Heart's breakfast audience of 768,000 was down both quarter on quarter - from 844,000 - and year on year. In the third quarter of 2007, Heart's Theakston and Scott had 810,000 listeners.
Fox's Magic show, with 732,000 listeners, was also down on both time periods. In the previous quarter he had 868,000, while a year ago he had 885,000 listeners.
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