New figures reveal that kmfm is now the most listened-to commercial radio station in Kent.

KentOnline’s sister station has a weekly audience of 168,200 people, listening for a record-breaking 1.494 million hours.

It means people in our county now spend more hours listening to kmfm than Heart Kent.

The figures released by Rajar this morning also show that kmfm Breakfast with Garry and Chelsea alongside kmfm Drivetime with Rob Wills now have the biggest hours commercially in Kent.

Over the last 12 months, listening at the weekend has seen an increase of almost 100,000 hours.

Rob Wills, kmfm’s head of broadcasting, said: “At kmfm, all of our content originates right here in the county.

“I take immense pride in the impact kmfm has on communities throughout Kent, our strong connection with our listeners, our support for local initiatives and our ability to help businesses grow.

“In today’s landscape, prioritising the creation of local content and campaigns is paramount, especially as many media outlets are scaling back.

“Highlights recently include Give A Gift, where we distributed almost 14,000 toys to children in care and hospital before Christmas; Be Bright Be Seen saw over 30,000 reflective items delivered to young school children across Kent; and our must-enter competitions such as £1,000 Friday and Best Year Ever making more Kent winners.

“We are excited about today’s listening figures being released and look forward to continuing to grow and evolve with our audience and commercial partners.”

The Rajar figures also show that BBC Local Radio in total lost 783,000 listeners and dropped 5.1m hours

It comes amid the BBC’s ongoing moves to reduce local radio content and invest in more online local journalism.

The drastic cuts to BBC Radio Kent’s output mean a single afternoon show is now broadcast across all of Kent, Surrey and Sussex between 2pm and 6pm.

The evening schedule is networked, with shared content broadcast across a huge part of the south east.

At weekends, a single breakfast show is broadcast across Kent, Surrey and Sussex.