Capital backs its breakfast formula.(News)

Capital Radio executives have turned to internal research to back their claims that Johnny Vaughan remains the right man to steer their flagship London station's breakfast show.

Despite the fact that Vaughan's Capital FM programme lost another 144,000 listeners in the latest Rajars, the group's operations director Paul Davies says a recent listener study found nearly seven out of 10 people approved of Chris Tarrant's successor.

"The feedback we're getting is absolutely bloody excellent," says Davies. "In internal research we did in October, 69% of the people listening over a two-week period said they loved or liked the show and only 11% disliked it."

However, although Capital FM increased its reach overall in the last Rajar survey, the group revealed in its annual results last week that the entire Capital FM network suffered a revenue fall due to "audience pressures" at the London FM station and Birmingham's BRMB. This decline was offset by a rise in Century network's revenues of more than 35% and both Xfm and Choice by more than 20% as total group revenues improved by 4% to 119.9m [pounds sterling] in the 12 months to September 30. Capital is injecting an additional 1.5m [pounds ...