THE return of popular Scott Masters to radio, twinned with 2CA favourite Paul Holmes, has almost doubled the station’s breakfast ratings, according to the first Canberra radio survey for the year.

The program’s market share for the breakfast time slot has lifted from 3.8 per cent to 7 per cent.

Meanwhile, the ABC Canberra station’s audience share slumped into single figures – 8.4 per cent – down 2.8 per cent from 11.2 per cent. It was the only local station to lose audience across every time slot, including weekends. Audience loss was most pronounced among listeners in the 40-54 age group where the station fell from 10.1 per cent of the available audience to 2.2 per cent and in the 18-24 year olds from 6.7 per cent to 1,4 per cent.

By comparison, commercial rival talk station 2CC remained relatively steady at 4.8 per cent of the available audience, though also losing share in the 40-54 age group.

The commercial FM stations continue to dominate the Canberra audience numbers with Mix106 lifting 3.6 per cent to 24.2 per cent and Hit107 up 3.1 per cent to 17.5 per cent.