Evans grew breakfast show audience by more than a million

Chris Evans added more than a million listeners to the Radio 2 breakfast show when he took over from Sir Terry Wogan – and has never lost them.

Sir Terry was attracting an average weekly audience of just under 8 million before he left the programme in December 2009.

When Evans took over in January 2010, listening figures immediately jumped to 9.5 million.

Since then, Evans has enjoyed an average audience of 9.3 million, making his programme the UK’s most popular breakfast show.

At times the audience has risen as high as 9.9 million.

Evans has also opened up a big lead over the Radio 1 breakfast show – which he himself hosted back in the mid-1990s.

When Sir Terry stood down, the Radio 2 breakfast show had around half a million more listeners than its Radio 1 counterpart.

The gap currently stands at nearly four million.

Quarterly figures on radio listeners are published by Rajar.