Commercial radio station Virgin has seen listening figures drop by almost 20% over the last year.

The drop reflects the station's fortunes since the departure of DJ Chris Evans.

More than 3.7 million tuned in every week in the three months after Evans left in June 2001 - but that dropped to three million per week in the same three months this year.

The station said the scale of the slump was a "blip" caused by the publicity surrounding Evans' departure.

Chris Tarrant's audience has also dropped

They said the intense media attention when Evans was sacked after disappearing for a week actually attracted new listeners.

"We were on every national newspaper and every TV station nearly every day, which obviously drove an extra amount of listeners to Virgin Radio," a spokesman told BBC News Online.

Over the last year, the station has gone through "a whole host of changes" to its DJ line-up, which is only just now starting to settle down, he added.

The station also pointed out a 10% jump in listening hours in London, where it is available on FM as well as AM.

The figures come from the latest set of quarterly statistics released by Radio Joint Audience Research Limited (Rajar).

The overall popularity of radio dipped slightly, with the average listener tuning in for 24 hours per week between July and September 2002 - one hour less than the same period in 2001.

Uncertainty

At London station Capital 95.8 FM, the figures revealed that breakfast DJ Chris Tarrant has lost 300,000 listeners in the last three months.

The station blamed uncertainty over whether he was leaving.

Among other stations, Radio 4 was one of the winners, gaining 600,000 listeners in a year to take it to almost 10 million per week.

In the battle of the pop music stations, Radio 2 lost 600,000 listeners in the last three months while Radio 1 gained 350,000 over the same period.

Radio 2 now has an audience of about 12.5 million per week, compared with Radio 1's 10.9 million.

News and sport station Five Live saw one of the biggest drops, with 900,000 fewer listeners between July and September than the previous three months.

That was attributed to the end of the World Cup.

Classic FM saw its audience build for a 14th consecutive quarter, attracting 6.7 million per week.