Rajar figures: Radio 4 audience at an all-time high, boost for Radio 1's Nick Grimshaw but Radio 3 ratings fall

Incisive interrogator: John Humphrys (BBC)

BBC Radio 4 has achieved a record audience, buoyed by the success of the Today programme, but Radio 3 has suffered a drop in ratings.

After a difficult week when Today presenters John Humphrys and James Naughtie were both the subjects of complaints upheld by the BBC Trust (Humphrys for a BBC2 documentary), the programme posted an audience figure of 6.97m, up more than 200,000 on last year. Radio 4’s weekly audience of 10.98 is at an all-time high.

In contrast, the Radio 3 breakfast show, hosted by Petroc Trelawny and Sara Mohr-Pietsch, lost more than 100,000 listeners on last year as it registered an audience of 615,000. Radio 3’s total audience of 1.99m was down 2.1 per cent on last year.

Radio 2 continues to grow, up to a new record figure of 15.44m (up 6.8 per cent on last year), while the revamped Radio 1 has made a slight recovery at 11.02m (still 2.2 per cent down on last year. Nick Grimshaw’s Breakfast Show on Radio 1 improved on its ratings from the last quarter, but at 5.89m it is down more than 1m on the audience of his predecessor Chris Moyles last year.

The official Rajar audience data revealed that 6 per cent of all radio listening is now on mobile phones and apps, while more than 10 per cent of in-car listening is on digital radio.