GCap, Britain's largest commercial radio group, saw its key London station Capital 95.8 pushed into fourth place behind Bauer's Kiss 100 for the first time.

In what has been a turbulent quarter for the radio giant, the subject of a takeover by Heart 106.2-owner Global Radio, GCap's sister London station Xfm also suffered a 40 per cent year-on-year decline, the latest quarterly audience figures revealed.

Capital had an average weekly audience of 1.56 million in the first three months of the year just behind Kiss, which had 1.58 million listeners. It is the first time Kiss has had a bigger audience than Capital, although its share of the London market at 4.3 per cent was behind Capital's 4.6 per cent.

Leading the London stations in terms of audience share were Heart 106.2 and Bauer's Magic 105.4, both with 5.8 per cent. Magic took the lead in the listeners category, with 1.92 million. Heart had 1.85 million listeners in the quarter.

In the race for the most popular breakfast show, the new pairing of Capital 95.8's Johnny Vaughan and Denise Van Outen has yet to succeed, although Ms Van Outen began only halfway through the measured period. The most popular London breakfast show was Heart's Jamie Theakston and Harriet Scott, with 893,000 listeners between 6am and 9am.

Magic's Neil Fox had 831,000, slightly ahead of Capital's new pairing, who attracted 829,000.

In what will make for uneasy reading for Global Radio, which last month had a £375 million cash offer accepted by GCap, there was little in the way of good news for GCap's other stations.

It's Xfm station continued to lose listeners, with weekly reach down 39.8 per cent year-on-year to 379,000. The station's audience share is now 0.9 per cent, half of what it was the same time a year ago. GCap's Gold London saw a year-on-year fall in reach of 59 per cent, to 224,000 listeners. GCap's national station Classic FM showed a year-on-year decline.

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