Heart FM wins out as women appeal takes it past Capital

She is sassy, loves Sex and the City and probably won't admit that she used to dance round her handbag at Eighties discos.

But the thirty-something London woman has sneaked up on Chris Tarrant in her LK Bennett shoes and unceremoniously dumped him from the throne of London's commercial radio.

After 30 years as the undisputed kingpin, Tarrant's Capital Radio was overtaken for listeners yesterday by the female-friendly Heart FM, said to be the favourite station of Denise Van Outen and Atomic Kitten.

Tarrant - the presenter of television's Who Wants To Be A Millionaire - might have been calling for a friend last night after finding that his breakfast radio show had shed more than a fifth of its audience in the space of three months.

Indeed his employer, Capital Radio, has already been on the telephone, lining up Johnny Vaughan as Tarrant's replacement, in an attempt to reverse the decline in its audience.

Figures released yesterday by the industry body Rajar showed that Heart FM, with its diet of female-friendly anthems, from Sister Sledge to Sugababes, has stormed past its rival, recording 16.2 million hours of listening, compared to Capital's 15.9 million.

Heart FM, launched only nine years ago, has emerged from almost nowhere to become a huge player in the competitive London market.

With its catchphrase of "The Right Song, Right Now", it is said to be pitched firmly at the thirty-something, fun-loving woman, epitomised by Ms Van Outen, who was recently a guest presenter on the station. Other guest presenters have included the girl bands Atomic Kitten and Sugababes.

While Capital has engaged in a war with the Emap-owned dance-music station Kiss FM, particularly in the struggle for younger listeners, Heart has remained firmly focused.

Steve Parkinson, Heart FM's managing director, said: "We have got there by stealth. We are aiming at career girls and young families. Those are our target groups." He said the station had held a series of women's lifestyle workshops "to find out what they do and what they watch".

Presenters are instructed to mirror the conversations of the target group - such as recounting events from an episode of Will and Grace shown the previous evening - rather than talking about themselves. Although the station features the loudmouth Australian presenter Jono Coleman, it is typified by Harriet Scott, who is billed as "a cool girl about town".

The station markets itself on images of a girls' night out but the station is as much the "housewives' choice" of suburban London as the soundtrack to the life of the street-savvy young career woman. Nevertheless, the success of the Chrysalis station mirrors the growing appeal across Britain for middle-of-the-road, hit-based commercial radio, with Magic and Virgin posting a combined audience that matches that of BBC Radio Five Live.

Tarrant haemorrhaged 342,000 of his Capital listeners (21.7 per cent of his audience) in the three months to 14 September.

The turn-off has been attributed to listener uncertainty associated with the star's anticipated departure from the station and his absence from the show for long holidays.

Capital, which celebrated its 30th birthday last week, will bring in Vaughan as Tarrant's replacement early in the new year. The former breakfast television presenter was chosen ahead of Capital's drivetime host, Neil Fox, who was one of the judges on ITV's talent show Pop Idol.

Despite his losses, Tarrant remains ahead of his commercial breakfast rivals in London, with 1.23 million listeners on average every week, compared to Coleman's 851,000. Virgin Radio's breakfast show Pete and Geoff increased its audience in London by 22 per cent to 660,000.

Capital still has more listeners than Heart but its problem is that they are not tuning in for as long.

BBC Radio 4 remains the overall most listened to station in the capital, with 15.8 per cent of audience share, followed by Radio 2 (10 per cent), Heart (7.2 per cent) and Capital (7 per cent).

Keith Pringle, Capital's managing director, admitted the results were "disappointing" but hoped for improvements from a recent revamping of the schedule.

Yesterday's Rajar figures also showed that the main BBC national networks are continuing to lose audience to the growth of digital radio, which now offers listeners a choice of 336 services from 144 different brands.

Radio 1, Radio 2, Radio 4 and Five Live all lost listeners during the three months.

The BBC's black music digital station, 1Xtra, posted an impressive 331,000 listeners in its first set of figures, while 6 Music recorded 154,000 and the spoken word station BBC 7 had an audience of 236,000.

The most successful commercial digital-only stations were Smash Hits Radio (977,000), Kerrang! (864,000) and Q (553,000) - which all benefit from cross-promotion with magazines and television stations - and Planet Rock (247,000). The figures revealed that 20.4 per cent of people listen to digital radio via their televisions.