No Rock And Roll Fun

SUDDEN HEART SHOCK: Last week's radio ratings have really thrown up a few flutters: Heart, which had been looking to overtake Capital in London, suddenly found itself in third place as EMAP's oldie format Magic did a surprise steam into second place - and just 0.1% of audience share behind the Capital behemoth itself.

Chrysalis shares plummeted in response, and in a desperate, panicked move, Jono Coleman has been dumped from breakfast. Coleman - a man who even a Care Bear would find it difficult to like - has been at the helm of the Heart's breakfast show since the end of the last century, and for a time had been doing quite well for audience, benefitting from Chris Tarrant's extended holidays and the presence of Doctor Fox at the Capital chair. Now there's other options, he's managed to lose a quarter of a million listeners. So he's being ousted to make way for Jamie Theakston. There are a lot of good reasons for employing Theakston - not least his knowledge of what forty quid can buy you in a late night London club - but these don't seem to have impressed Heart half as much as test marketing in key demographics.

In the other radio figures, Terry Wogan is now pulling in eight million listeners for the Radio 2 breakfast show. In part, this is due to Radio 2's positioning of itself as a younger, more aware station; but we can't help wondering if there's also been a benefit from the switch in the way pensions are paid. Before their cash became channelled through bank accounts, OAPs would start gathering in large numbers outside Post Offices
waiting for them to open; now, they'll all be at home instead. That's got to elp Tel's figures.