The Radio 2 Breakfast Show has hit a 10-year audience low under new host Zoe Ball, new figures have revealed. 

The presenter’s morning slot has also shed nearly a million listeners in a year, according to the latest figures released by audience research body Rajar.

The presenter drew 7.90 million weekly listeners in the third quarter of 2019, compared to the 8.82m listeners her predecessor Chris Evans was attracting in the equivalent period last year. 

After taking over the Breakfast Show in January, when she also became the first woman to front the programme, Zoe had initially maintained Chris’ audience. 

In her first three months in the job, she had a weekly listenership of 9.05m – almost unchanged from the 9.07 million for Chris’ final three months.

However, that figure dropped to 8.27m in the second quarter of 2019, and she has now lost more than 300,000 additional listeners.

The new figures are the lowest for the Radio 2 Breakfast Show since the July-September period in 2009 when Sir Terry Wogan was at the mic, with 7.76m tuning in on a weekly basis.

It’s not all bad news for Zoe though, as she still has the most popular breakfast show across the country. 

Having left Radio 2 to host a new breakfast show on Virgin, Chris has retained a stable audience over the last three months, averaging 1.11m weekly listeners in the third quarter of 2019. 

Over on Radio 1, Breakfast Show host Greg James has seen a slight increase in his listenership. 

Greg, who hosts the 6.30-10am slot from Monday to Thursday, now has a weekly average audience of 5.05m listeners, compared to 4.98m in the third quarter of 2018.

Meanwhile, Amanda Holden and Jamie Theakston’s show on Heart is now the nation’s most popular commercial radio breakfast slot with 4.56m listeners. 

The nationwide programme was launched in June to replace the network’s string of local breakfast broadcasts.