BBC Radio 2 has lost one million listeners after Ken Bruce left the station for Greatest Hits Radio.
The Scottish broadcaster announced back in March that he would be stepping down from his mid-morning slot on Radio 2, which he had hosted for more than 30 years, and jumping ship to commercial station Greatest Hits Radio.
New figures from industry body Rajar showed that Radio 2’s weekly listeners dropped from 14.45 million in the first quarter of this year to 13.45m this quarter, which covered the period since Ken’s departure.
Meanwhile the DJ’s new gig seemed to provide a major boost for Greatest Hits Radio, with Ken drawing in just under three million weekly listeners for his new show, around 1.25m more than the mid-morning slot’s previous host Mark Goodier.
“I’ve always said that it’s not really about the numbers and it’s not, for me at least, but I’m delighted to hear today’s news for the team here at my new home, Greatest Hits Radio,” Ken said in a statement.
“My first four months have flown by and I’ve loved every minute of it – and there’s much more to come. [The show] wouldn’t be what it is without its listeners so your company is always much appreciated.”
Despite the drop in listeners, though, Radio 2 remains the UK’s most popular radio station.
The channel has undergone a shake-up in recent months, with many big names like Steve Wright, Craig Charles and Vanessa Feltz either leaving or having their number of programmes reduced
Ken previously revealed that he decided to leave Radio 2 when he was not approached about renewing his contract a few months before it was set to come to an end.
“I think I did surprise them, but the fact was I hadn’t been offered any continuation at that point,” he told the Daily Mail. “They then said, ‘Well, we were going to offer you another three years.’”
By this point, however, Ken had agreed to his new deal with Greatest Hits and “didn’t want to get into a bidding war”.
He was initially set to host his show until the end of March, but his time on air was eventually cut short, causing him to leave 17 days earlier than anticipated.
“That was disappointing,” he told the Mail. “I thought, ’Come on, you can trust me. I’m not going to do a Dave Lee Travis [and] start badmouthing everybody, because I had a lovely time at the BBC. So it was all a bit... unnecessary.”
Ken, who worked at the BBC for more than four decades in total, previously trademarked his PopMaster quiz format, a mainstay of his Radio 2 show. As a result, he was able to bring it over to his Greatest Hits slot, and also recently launched a TV version of the game with Channel 4.
The broadcaster’s mid-morning Radio 2 slot was taken over by Vernon Kay in May.
