Sir Terry Wogan equalled his best-ever audience in his final three months on the BBC Radio 2 breakfast show with more than 8 million listeners, nearly a million more than listened to his BBC Radio 1 rival, Chris Moyles.
Wogan, who made way for Chris Evans after a total of 27 years on the breakfast show, presenting his final programme on 18 December, had an average weekly reach of 8.1 million listeners in the last quarter of 2009, according to Rajar figures published today.
Boosted, no doubt, by the publicity surrounding his emotional farewell, Wogan's audience was up from the 7.76 million who tuned in the previous quarter, and 7.96 million who heard him in the same period in 2008.
Wogan, who last reached 8.1 million listeners in the first three months of 2008, extended his lead over his long-time rival Moyles to 860,000, with an average of 7.24 million people listening to the Radio 1 breakfast show each week.
Moyles' audience was up from 7.04 million the previous three months but down from 7.3 million year on year.
Wogan helped Radio 2 to an average weekly audience of 13.47m listeners in the final quarter of 2009, up marginally year on year but down 1.1% on the previous quarter. Radio 2's share of the audience equalled its record at 16.5%, up from 15.8% in the same period in 2008.
All five of the BBC's main national networks were down on the previous quarter. The biggest faller was BBC Radio 3, which fell 14.5% to 1.87 million listeners, and was down 5.4% year on year, the only one of the five stations to also show a year-on-year drop.
BBC Radio 5 Live was down 4.4% on the previous quarter to 6.11 million but up 1.9% year on year, while Radio 1's audience of 10.76m was down 3.1% on the previous quarter but up 1.8% on the same period in 2008.
There was a similar pattern at BBC Radio 4, which was down 3.7% on the previous quarter but up 0.3% year on year to 9.84m.
The BBC's total share of listening was 55.2%, up from 55% the previous quarter but down from 55.7% in the same period of 2008. Commercial radio's share of the audience, at 42.6%, was up both on the previous quarter – when it was 42.4% – and the previous year, when it was 42.2%.
The corporation's lead over commercial radio, at 12.6%, was identical to the previous three months, and down from 13.5% at the end of 2008.
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