The Grimmy effect: Nick Grimshaw grows Radio 1 audience by 100,000 listeners

He might still be almost four million listeners behind Radio 2 rival Chris Evans, but DJ Nick Grimshaw has proven he can bring listeners to Radio 1 by growing his audience by 100,000.

Grimshaw, who replaced Chris Moyles last year, has seen his average audience grow to 5.88 million from 5.78 million in the first quarter of 2013, according industry body Rajar.

However, his command of the airwaves is still considerably behind Radio 4's Today programme, which has an average audience of 6.97 million, and way behind Evans, whose audience is 9.75 million.

Previous figures revealed that Grimshaw, who was brought in to lower the profile of Radio 1 listeners to the core 15- 24 age group, saw the average audience drop by 950,000 listeners in the six months since he took over the show.

Overall Radio 1 saw its average audience climb to just over 11 million, up from 10.26 million in the first quarter of the year and almost back to the 11.2 million who tuned in over the same period last year.

"It is brilliant to see that we are reaching three quarters of a million new listeners on Radio 1 and we are particularly happy to see an increase in younger audiences to our Breakfast Show," remarked Radio 1 controller Ben Cooper.