RAJAR winners

There's a warm bath of Cava around most radio stations today, with the UK radio audience growing and listening longer.

And, as predicted here, we're are beginning to see the march of the commercial national and quasi-national pop and easy listening stations.  The Kiss network is up from 3.4m to 4m, and the Bauer group as a whole (which includes Kiss) is now a major force with 13.4m listeners.  At Global Radio, Heart is holding up at 7.4m; Capital at 6.7m; Classic FM is back above 6m (this after Simon Bates's defection to Smooth !); the Gold Network is up to 1.5m and LBC has grown to 1.2m nationally.  The group as a whole reaches 19.7m.

Progress has been slower at GMG's Smooth Radio - holding on to 3m listeners nationally; but Simon Bates arrival at breakfast on Smooth London has seen the slot attract 40% more listeners quarter and quarter, and that should feed into the national figures in Q2.  Their Real Radio branded network of five stations now pulls in 2.5m.

Still, this listening has not yet impacted on Radio 2 in any big way - losing only 32,000 listeners year-on-year.

Pats-on-the-back are due to the Asian Network team, building their audience to a three year-high. All the more remarkable considering for all but two weeks of the survey period, the axe was still over their heads. It's  now back in the tool cupboard, but not yet quite locked up; it should be - it's now the most popular station amongst those aimed at British Asians.