Phew, that was a lot of DRM nonsense. Hey, how about some RAJARs nonsense? As we reported yesterday, the latest round of the slightly made up radio listening figures are out, and it's good news for the Beeb who seem to be benefiting the most from the growth in digital and online radio listening - boosting BBC Radio's over all listening share to 55.1%, which is annoying for advertisers wanting to reach that half of the radio listening public.
Chris Moyles is partly to blame for the Beeb's success - his Radio 1 breakfast show winning 160,000 new listeners in the last quarter, meaning he now has an estimated audience of 6.66 million, a 370,000 increase on 2004. Those increases helped Radio 1's overall performance which, while not quite as good as the previous quarter, was up year on year - giving the nation's favourite a 9.2% audience share, up from 8.2% in 2004. Well done them.
Of course that doesn't actually make them or him the nation's favourite. That honour belongs to Radio 2 and Terry Wogan. The Beeb's second station has something in the region of 13.25 million listeners, while Wogan has the most listened to morning show - some 7.97 million people are apparently tuning in each morning, which experts confirm is "a lot".
Back to the commercial sector, and of course all eyes at RAJAR time are always on those stations competing for the title of 'biggest in London'. GCap's Capital FM recovered a bit after last time's disappointing RAJARS, boosting weekly audience reach to 1.8 million, and audience share to 5.9%. That said, main rival Heart 106.2 held on to its status of 'biggest in London' in terms of audience share, having 6% of the market.
Breakfast shows-wise, Capital's Johnny Vaughan got his audience back up to 987,000 - up on the previous quarter but still down year on year. That said, the boost helped him extend his lead on Heart's Jamie Theakston breakfast show, which comes in second with 918,000 listeners.
Elsewhere in the GCap group, some disappointment at the group's alternative station Xfm which has seen its audience drop since it lost flagship presenter Christian O'Connell to rival Virgin Radio. It's weekly audience fell to 497,000, down from 628,000 the previous quarter and 535,000 a year ago. That means sister station Choice now has a bigger audience - 510,000.
It remains to be seen whether O'Connell can work his ratings boosting magic over at Virgin - his new show won't be rated until the next set of RAJARs. His predecessors in the station's breakfast slot, Pete And Geoff, had added 118,000 London listeners year on year, although their audience fell slightly at the end of 2005 compared to the previous quarter. Overall national Virgin listening figures were up on both the previous quarter, and the previous year.
Magic's new London breakfast show fronted by Neil Fox had 682,000 listeners, down very slightly on the old breakfast slot with Graham Dene. More importantly for Magic, the EMAP station lost its status as third biggest in London to GCap's Classic FM, which saw its London and national audiences rise compared to the previous quarter - though not to the previous year's peak.