Easy listening

Is News UK's business plan for Chris Evans' working ? Trebling Virgin Radio's audience over one quarter is not a bad start, to just over 1m.  His breakfast show figures mean he's overtaken Chris Moyles at Radio X, but he's 300k behind another new morning host, Lauren Laverne at Radio 6Music.  (An interesting sidebar - Chris, 53, has driven the average age of a Virgin listener up from 40 to 47).

News UK are probably aiming for closer to 3m before the end of this year - so Chris needs to work harder on stunts that get him noticed, and News UK need to boost the star quality elsewhere in the schedule.

Radio analysts reckon Chris Evans has attracted 885k to Virgin, but they don't all seem to have come from Radio 2, where Zoe Ball has had a great start, down just 72k on the previous year's reach.

• Some of the nuggets in this post have come from Matt Deegan and Adam Bowie, who both deserve a longer read.