BBC Radio 2 DJ Chris Evans has surged ahead of his Radio 1 breakfast rival Chris Moyles with his biggest-ever lead of more than 2 million listeners.
Evans had an average weekly reach of 9.23 million listeners in the first three months of 2012, ahead of Moyles's 7.1 million, according to official Rajar figures published on Thursday.
It is Evans's biggest lead over Moyles – who has had talks with Radio 2 about presenting a show on the network – since the 1.7 million advantage he had in the third quarter of last year.
Evans helped Radio 2 to within a whisker of a new record audience with 14.56 million listeners each week on average in the first quarter, just 9,000 short of its highest ever.
There were also record audiences for Radio 2 presenters including morning DJ Ken Bruce, with 7.72 million, and lunchtime presenter Jeremy Vine, with 6.76 million.
There is no shortage of rivalry between Evans and Moyles, who had harboured hopes of becoming the UK's biggest breakfast show when Sir Terry Wogan stood down from the Radio 2 wake-up slot at the end of 2009.
But Evans has not only maintained Wogan's lead, he has built on it since taking over the show two years ago.
It was not Evans's biggest breakfast audience though – that was the 9.53 million listeners he had in the first three months of 2010 immediately after he took over from Wogan.
BBC Radio 3 suffered the biggest drop of any of the BBC's national stations, down 15.8% year on year – and 9.3% on the previous quarter – to just over 1.9 million listeners.
With 350,000 fewer listeners than a year ago, it is Radio 3's lowest audience since the second quarter of 2010 and followed changes to its schedule intended to broaden the station's appeal. It was Radio 3's second significant audience drop in less than a year.
The new-look schedule includes a new weekday morning show and listener requests on the breakfast show.
Radio 3 is still some way off its lowest ever audience of 1.78 million in 2007, which followed another schedule shakeup by controller Roger Wright.
A BBC spokeswoman said: "BBC Radio 3's audience traditionally fluctuates around the 2m mark – this is only the second quarter of a new schedule and audience reach figures are only one measure of our success – we're proud that we bring so many people to our distinctive blend of high-quality classical and cultural content with listeners listening for longer year on year up from 6.06 to 6.16 hours per listener a week."
The BBC World Service, which has had its funding cut by the government, also saw a big drop in its UK audience, down 27% year on year to 1.3 million. The cutbacks including the axing of World Service broadcasting on medium wave to the south-east of England.
Elsewhere, BBC Radio 1 slipped back 4.5% on the previous quarter, to 11.14 million weekly listeners on average, while Radio 4 was also down, 4.9% to 10.31 million.
Radio 4's Today programme was listened to by 6.66 million people a week, down from 7.15 million the previous quarter.
News and sport network BBC Radio 5 Live had 6.36 million listeners, up on the previous quarter but down 4.3% year on year. The 5 Live breakfast show had 2.56 million listeners.
Digital station BBC 6 Music, crowned station of the year at this week's Sony Radio Academy awards, continued to grow, albeit marginally, up 0.8% on the previous quarter to a new high of 1.45 million listeners a week.
BBC local radio, which faces smaller than expected budget cuts following a public consultation by the BBC Trust, grew its total audience by 263,000 listeners on the previous quarter to 7.6 million, its highest share of the audience since 2008.
The BBC's best performing digital networks were 5 Live Sports Extra, up 54.5% on the previous quarter to 952,000, and the Asian Network, which like 6 Music was saved from the axe but faces big cutbacks. It had 540,000 listeners, up 14.4% on the end of 2011.
BBC Radio 4's sister station, Radio 4 Extra, had 1.5 million listeners, down 3.3% the previous quarter, while 1Xtra was up year on year but down 9.9% on the previous three months, to 916,000.
