The drop in the number of listeners to BBC Radio 2’s breakfast show since Chris Evans left has come as a personal blow to its host Zoe Ball.
“You kind of pretend it is not, but then the listening figures come in and your face is ‘on the tin’, so I do take it completely to heart.”
Figures released last week show that her audience has improved slightly over the last quarter to 8.2 million weekly listeners, following a long slide down from the 9.1 million who tuned in to hear Evans in the weeks before his final show on Christmas Eve 2018.