City Talk in Liverpool has also lost 4000 listeners since its first official set of audience figures in December. 

It comes as the Liverpool station awaits a request to Ofcom to allow it to broadcast music as well as speech.

When How-Do asked Bauer for a specific comment on the 2 stations, they said that Key 103 had had a 0.3% increase in market share based on this time last year - even if it had risen to 9.2% in last quarter's figures. The statement didn't address City Talk.

Regional managing director for Bauer Michelle Surrell, instead opted to talk about Radio City which did do well, adding 29,000 listeners and increasing its share from 11.3% to 12.9%:

"We're particularly delighted with the very strong performance on Radio City. We will maintain our focus on safeguarding the future direction of the stations via a continual commitment to programming excellence and effective marketing.  Our strategy of delivering great local content combined with strong personalities is working, and is unwavering."

Meanwhile The Revolution continues to grow, adding 6000 listeners and more than doubling its percentage share from 1.1% to 2.4%. That follows the somewhat controversial takeover by Steve Penk and his transformation of the indie rock output to pop.

Radio Lancashire also enjoyed a successful quarter adding 23,000 listeners, increasing its market share to just under 10%.

UTV’s Tower FM has seen audience figures drop from 60,000 to 44,000 and Rock FM has also lost more than 30,000 listeners.

Globally radio listening reached an all time high this quarter with 45.8m listeners tuning in every week - 90.2% of the population.

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