The BBC station had an estimated weekly audience of 12.79 million across July to September of this year, up slightly from 12.62 million in April to June.
The number of listeners had previously fallen by nearly half a million between the first and second quarters of the year – a period that saw Radio 2 overhaul its weekday line-up at the end of January.
Changes included Scott Mills replacing Zoe Ball as host of the breakfast show, Trevor Nelson begin a new afternoon slot and DJ Spoony present a late evening programme on Mondays to Thursdays.
Despite the latest increase, Radio 2 has lost nearly two million listeners since autumn 2021, when the current method of measuring audiences was introduced by the research body Rajar.
It remains the UK’s most popular radio station, however.
The Radio 2 breakfast show had an average weekly audience of 6.16 million in the three months to September, down very slightly from 6.22 million in April to June.
This is the lowest figure since Rajar resumed its regular survey of radio listeners in 2021, after a gap during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Scott Mills continues to enjoy the largest audience on national radio at that time of the day, ahead of Radio 4’s Today programme, which had an average audience of 5.49 million in the latest period, as well as the breakfast shows on Radio 1 (3.95 million) and commercial broadcaster Heart (4.06 million).
The audience for the Today programme is down from 5.64 million in the previous three months and is more than a million lower than the earliest comparable figure of 6.51 million in autumn 2021, though not quite a post-pandemic low.
Helen Thomas, head of Radio 2, said: “I’m very proud that Radio 2 saw an increase in listeners this quarter, where we brought Radio 2 In the Park to Chelmsford in Essex, hosted some of the world’s most-loved musicians in the Piano Room including Robbie Williams and Richard Ashcroft, celebrated 200 years of the modern railway in 21st Century Folk, and Vernon Kay treated listeners to backstage interviews at the first Oasis live gig in Manchester.
“Radio 2 firmly remains the UK’s most-listened to single radio station, with an audience of 12.8m each week.
“Congratulations to Scott Mills, whose breakfast show remains the number one breakfast show in the country with 6.2m listeners, and Vernon Kay, whose weekday mid-morning show continues to be the most-listened to programme on UK radio, with a weekly audience of 6.6m.”
The latest Rajar figures also show that:
– Radio 3’s breakfast programme has lost a fifth of its listeners in the past year and now stands at 687,000, down from 748,000 in April-June and 866,000 in July-September 2024: a period that coincides with the departure of long-term host Petroc Trelawny and his replacement from April 7 by Tom McKinney.
– Radio 4 had an average weekly audience of 8.86 million in the latest quarter, down from 9.23 million in the previous three months and the lowest since the pandemic.
– Radio 1’s average weekly audience of 7.31 million is down on the quarter by 2% and down 11% year on year, though it remains above its post-pandemic low.
– Commercial network Greatest Hits saw a drop in listeners for the sixth quarter in a row, with an average audience of 6.23 million, though this is still more than double the audience it recorded in autumn 2021.
Among the smaller news-based stations, Times Radio had an average of 564,000 listeners across the three months to September, down 8% on the previous quarter but up 1% on the year.
GB News averaged 684,000 listeners in the latest quarter, its highest number since launching on the radio in 2022, up 25% on the quarter and up 12% on the year.
