the heart of the capital returns to chrysalis!

Chrysalis station Heart 106.2 regains top spot in London from Emap rivals Magic 105.4, but Capital Radio's Johnny Vaughan just hangs on to the prized number one Breakfast slot over his rivals, although his figures are down both in terms of the last quarter and Year on Year figures.

Other positive news at Breakfast saw Capital Gold and LBC News putting in improved performances.

Nationally, Virgin Radio and its sister Digital Station Virgin Radio Classic Rock, along with Gcap's Planet Rock and XFM, Emap's Kerrang and Chrysalis digital station The Arrow, all showed the growth in demand for Guitar and Rock music across the country as they all gained audience.

Other Digital Stations also showed the growth in audience on this platform with Gcap's Capital Disney & The Chill, along with Emap's The Hits, Mojo and Q all showing gains. The Hits maintains its position as the leading digital platform station taking its weekly reach firmly now above a million to 1,182,000.

GMG's newly acquired Century stations saw a small decline in audience, whilst Real Radio Scotland saw it produce it's best ever weekly reach figures of 736,000, whilst sister station 100.4 Smooth also continued its successful switch from Jazz by also notching up record figures of 687,000 weekly reach; and with 5.7 millions hours it makes it the most listened to station across the North West region.

Commercial Radio improved its share of all listening from 42.9% to 43.6%, whilst BBC audiences declined slightly to 54.3%. The commercial stations maintain their dominance in the important 15-44 demographic with share up to 56.4% compared to all BBC 40.9 %.

Source: Ross Harvey, Radio Works, October 26, 2006 11:19AM