It seems Kyle and Jackie O aren’t the only ones leaving breakfast radio – the audiences are leaving too.

Like ‘em or loathe ‘em, the 2Day FM breakfast crew have a big following. In the latest survey they account for 11.2 percent of all breakfast listening. 581,000 Sydneysiders will listen in at some point during the week (compared to 400,000 who listen to Alan Jones).

Whilst its interesting seeing who people are listening to, it should also be a wake-up call to the industry as to who is not listening. First, there’s a lot of radio listeners who are spending time away from the mainstream stations – that includes community stations and a sprinkling of unsurveyed commercial channels. Collectively they account for almost 13 percent of the breakfast audience – a bit more than the 2Day audience. This time last year the figure was 10.8 percent, and it’s been steadily creeping up survey by survey.

More significant is the number of people not listening to radio at all. The average breakfast audience in Sydney around this time of the year in 2010 was 944,000 people. In the latest survey the figure had dropped to 894,000. That’s a 50,000 drop in a city whose population has grown by 200,000. 

Over the last three years we have seen the average breakfast audience drop from 24 percent of the population down to 21 percent. Imagine if that trend continued. In 11 years only 10 percent of the population would be listening to the radio at any point in the breakfast shift. That’s a lot of advertising revenue foregone.

View the latest radio ratings here.