BBC Radio Scotland’s flagship morning show has lost almost 40% of its listeners, it has been reported.
Good Morning Scotland was launched on Hogmanay in 1973, and became the longest-running and most listened to show on the station.
But the programme was dropped permanently in November last year, with station managers saying that “audience habits change”.
It was replaced by Radio Scotland Breakfast, which the broadcaster described as “pacey, informal and informative”.
However, The Times reports that official figures show the station has dropped thousands of listeners.
When Good Morning Scotland was still on air, the station was listened to by more than 80,000 people at around 8.30am a year ago.
That fell to 70,000 listeners between January and April this year, after Radio Scotland Breakfast was launched.
The programme is presented by Martin Geissler, Laura Maciver, Amy Irons and Fiona Stalker.
And now the latest figures show that listeners have dropped to just over 50,000.
This is a reduction of more than a third in the space of around six months.
The newspaper reports that Hayley Valentine, appointed as BBC Scotland director in 2024, was behind the change.
Valentine was previously launch editor of The Nine, BBC Scotland TV channel’s main show. It was cancelled two years ago after it emerged that one episode was viewed by fewer than 2000 people.
A BBC employee told The Times: “Hayley styles herself as a trailblazer but, as we saw from her editorship of The Nine, audiences didn’t share her enthusiasm. The same is now true of Radio Scotland Breakfast.
“Colleagues questioned the wisdom of destroying a 50-year-old brand like Good Morning Scotland, but she would not listen. Instead, she’s ploughing on, hiring people from commercial radio and ‘dumbing down’ the station, while loyal listeners are deserting us in droves.”
The employee claimed that there has been an internal push to promote Radio Scotland Breakfast on Reporting Scotland after the figures become known.
It comes as news staff at BBC Scotland had been told cuts and redundancies are imminent.
The broadcaster is seeking to make £500 million in savings over the next three years across the UK.
It plans to lose 550 staff roles across the country, with shows being scrapped and positions of news presenters being reviewed.
North of the Border, it is expected that as many as 60 jobs will be lost.
A BBC spokesman said: “BBC Radio Scotland remains the most listened-to station broadcasting from Scotland.
“The most recent report from Rajar showed our reach increasing 20,000 year-on-year to 844,000 and the newly launched Radio Scotland Breakfast is a part of that success.
“We are happy with the development of our new breakfast offering and the work being done by the team to deliver a distinctive programme for listeners across Scotland.
“We remain focused on providing audiences with the stories, conversation and analysis that matter most to them.”
