BBC bosses are putting their weight behind new Breakfast Show DJ Chris Moyles -- and say he is likely to recapture the listeners lost during Sara Cox's reign on the show.

The latest figures show Radio 1 as a whole lost nearly half-a-million listeners at the end of last year.

Its audience was 9.4 million for the period September to December 2003, down from 9.85 million the previous quarter and more than a million down on the previous year.

The Radio 1 figures cover the period when Bolton DJ Sara Cox was still at the helm of the Breakfast Show.

She was replaced by Chris Moyles -- the self-proclaimed savior of Radio 1-- earlier this month, and a Radio 1 spokesman said audience reaction so far had been good with figures showing an upturn. But the spokesman insisted the DJ had not been put under pressure to bring back listeners.

He said: "When we gave Chris the job we didn't demand that he put on a certain amount of listeners. Ratings are not the be-all and end-all for us.

"As with any DJ, it will take a while for him to settle in. It will be a couple of quarters before we see any changes."

The station's daytime output is still "under construction" with new signings including presenting duo JK and Joel, who will join in the summer to front a weekend show.

They have been hugely popular as the Breakfast Show hosts of Manchester's Key 103, a station which recently saw the return of Steve Penk.

The spokesman said: "Radio 1 is operating in an increasingly crowded market, with new youth brands launching all the time."