Chris Moyles has lost nearly 700,000 listeners to his Radio 1 breakfast show over the past three months, according to official figures.

The audience for the self-styled “saviour of Radio 1” declined by nearly 10 per cent from 7.72 million over the summer to 7.04 million listeners, according to the latest Radio Joint Audience Research (Rajar) figures, fuelling speculation that the presenter will step down from the show soon.

Chris Evans, who will take over the Radio 2 breakfast slot when Sir Terry Wogan steps down in December, has said that Moyles, 35, is too old to continue in the job. “He [Moyles] must be entering the end of his tenure because he is simply playing to an audience that he is older than,” Evans said. “That is not going to work if he continues to do it.” Evans will take up his new post on January 11.

The bookmaker William Hill cut its odds yesterday for Moyles to step down in the new year to evens. “Seven hundred thousand is a lot of listeners and we would be surprised if Chris was still there by the end of next year,” a spokesman said.

Sir Terry retained his crown as presenter of the most popular breakfast show in the country, but his audience fell slightly over the past three months, from 7.9 million to 7.8 million.

Commercial radio companies have complained about Evans and Moyles going head to head, as they believe their audiences are too similar and will unfairly lure listeners from the commercial sector. Radio 1 is supposed to cater for listeners between the ages of 15-29 and Radio 2 is charged with catering for the over 35s.Andrew Harrison, chief executive of RadioCentre, which represents commercial radio, said: “To have, in their flagship breakfast show programmes, two presenters who have each presented on Radio 1 within the past decade would seem to make it more difficult to pull the two audiences apart.”

The group is expected to complain to the BBC Trust, the corporation’s governing body, if station bosses do not take action to ensure that both stations appeal to their required demographic. “We intend to keep a close watching brief on the output,” Mr Harrison said.

One popular theory among radio executives is that Moyles will step down from the breakfast show next summer after six years in the job, but will be awarded a different slot on Radio 1. Evans is expected to lose a significant amount of listeners in the first few months of taking over from Wogan, meaning that Moyles is almost certain to take the title of most popular breakfast presenter in the first three months next year. This would allow him to quit while on a high.

Radio 4 has achieved its highest listening figures yet and now averages an audience of 10.22 million people per week, according to the official data. The BBC radio station has gained more than 750,000 listeners in the past year, and a number of its best known programmes have registered record high audiences since new measuring methodology was introduced in 1999.

Both Woman’s Hour and You and Yours recorded their highest listening figures to date, with average weekly audiences of 3.06 million and 3.33 million respectively. The Today programme posted an audience of 6.6 million, marginally under its highest figure of 6.7 million earlier this year, but boasted its highest share of breakfast listeners, at 16.8 per cent.

Mark Damazer, controller of Radio 4, told The Times that the recession was likely to have played a part in boosting the station’s audience. He said: “In the short term it could well be that not only Today but most of the morning programmes, including ones that have quite a large fibre of journalism, have benefited.

“They are rather good at the macroeconomic issues such as public debt and unemployment without resorting to the phone-in technique. They give you strong, original journalism.Someone like Evan Davis on Today is a prime example.”

Other good performers on Radio 4 were World at One, which posted a rise in listeners both on the year and the quarter, to 3.16 million; the PM programme, which rose to 3.75 million listeners; and The Archers, whose listening figures were up to 4.86 million.

Victory for the England cricket team in the Ashes resulted in a boon for the BBC’s digital sports station, Radio 5 Live Sports Extra, which attracted a record 963,000 listeners each week.

TalkSPORT, on commercial radio, also profited from the efforts of Andrew Strauss’s team, with the station’s drivetime show, presented by former England fast-bowler Darren Gough and Adrian Durham, winning more than a million listeners a week for the first time.

Editor's choice

• The super cool Vampire Weekend
• Streep and Baldwin get complicated
• Guy Ritchie on Sherlock Holmes