Radio 1 loses nearly 1m listeners as Nick Grimshaw's Breakfast Show reaches new low

But the station is pleased to be 'scaring off the over-30s'

Breakfast Show’s Nick Grimshaw

BBC Radio 1 set out to reach a more ‘youthful’ audience and that’s exactly what they did. Unfortunately, it's cost them nearly one million listeners.

According to official Rajar listening figures, the station averaged 9.7 million listeners a week during the first three months 2015, its lowest audience since the end of 2003. Year on year, the station has lost 830,000 listeners from its 10.5 million weekly average in 2014.

Nick Grimshaw’s breakfast show has slumped to his lowest listening figures yet, with just 5.5 million tuning in to his antics every week.

The figures mark a record low for Grimshaw’s breakfast show, and are the lowest since Sara Cox’s final three months in 2003.

Nick Grimshaw will replaced Chris Moyles as Radio 1's breakfast show host in 2012 (Getty Images)

After criticism that the station was not youthful enough, Grimshaw was hired to replace Chris Moyles in 2012 in an attempt to attract younger listeners.

According to the new figures, listeners aged over 30 accounted for around 90 per cent of the dip in figures, the most common age of a Radio 1 listener being 21.

Radio 1 controller Ben Cooper congratulated the host, saying: “Grimmy is doing what I've asked of him by keeping his young audience happy and scaring off the over-30's."

Chris Evans’s Radio 2 breakfast show has also seen a dip in listeners, although not as significantly. He lost 400,000 listeners in comparison to last year, a drop of 9.83 million to 9.46 million.

In better news for the BBC, Radio 4 Extra, the digital sister to Radio 4 and home to vintage comedies such as Dad’s Army and Hancock’s Half Hour, overtook both Radio 3 and Radio 6 music to become the most popular digital-only station, with 2.1 million listeners.