Sir Terry bowed out at the top with beloved audience

The veteran presenter, who insisted he wanted to step down when the going was good, had 8.1 million listeners each week as he quit his long-running morning show Wake Up To Wogan in December.

Figures from industry body Rajar for the final quarter of 2009 show that Sir Terry's audience equalled the record he set in 2008. It will make successor Chris Evans's task even more onerous as he tries to maintain the audience.

The outgoing presenter's audience of Togs – Terry's Old Geezers and Gals – was 140,000 listeners up year on year. Sir Terry had fronted the breakfast slot for a total of 27 years, building up the biggest morning show audience in Europe.

His Radio 1 rival Leeds-born Chris Moyles has 7.24 million listeners.

Sir Terry returns with a new 11am Sunday show, Weekend Wogan, on February 14 with guests Norah Jones and Jamie Cullum. Radio 2's audience is now 13.47 million, the same as last year although a dip of 150,000 on the quarter.

The new figures show commercial network Global's Big Top 40 has built up a commanding lead as the nation's biggest chart show.

The countdown has just over two million listeners, compared with the 1.31 million who listen to Radio 1's Top 40 each Sunday afternoon.

Radio 1 now has 10.76 million listeners overall.

Radio 3's audience stands at 1.87 million. For Radio 4 there was a slight annual gain of 30,000 listeners to give a weekly audience of 9.84 million.