[Stooky Bill]

It’s only a few months since Scott Mills was announced, and I’m not seeing anywhere near the negativity (and downright nastiness) he received, thankfully.

I think bringing in Scott Mills helped to increase the churn of older listeners from R2 to commercial stations like Smooth and Greatest Hits which accommodate the audience that enjoyed Steve's show. 

The remaining hardcore fans of Ken will switch to Greatest Hits while the rest will stick with Radio 2 regardless of numerous presenter changes.

That does seem to be the experience when previous presenters have gone to other stations, Radio 2's audience in general has shrunk gradulally over the years but there's not been mass exoduses. 

Also the gains for the other stations haven't been that great. Chris Evans gets around a million on Virgin which is more than they got before but a long way from the 9 million on Radio 2. Same with Graham Norton on Virgin and Simon Mayo on GHR. 

People are loyal to stations moreso than presenters. Also Radio 2 has universal coverage in FM and DAB. Other stations don't - Ken Bruce fans in many parts of the country won't be able to hear him on FM for example (possibly not in DAB either). Even if they can it's coverage is fairly patchy and annoyingly (as I do listen to it) it doesn't have RDS AF - I have it on 3 car radio presets as round here it took over 3 local stations in different towns and they don't switch when driving about!