SCOT FM, the commercial station which has been criticised for being

all talk and no action, had the opportunity yesterday to let its first

audience figures speak for themselves.

The official quarterly RAJAR figures revealed that the station has an

8% weekly audience and is on target for a 10% share within the year.

However, this was well short of the 13% share which the station

confidently predicted it would achieve when it applied for its

broadcasting licence.

Still, to claim 235,000 listeners in its first three months of

operation was something to be happy about, according to station chief

Tom Hunter.

Scot FM, which covers the Central Scotland belt from Glasgow to

Edinburgh, secured only 2.4% in the east and 2% in the west. This

compares with a market share for Radio Forth FM of 17% and Clyde One of

25.7%. Clyde Two has a market share of 17% in the west.

Scot FM is also in direct competition with Radio Scotland, whose

service is almost 90% talk radio. Yesterday's figures showed that Radio

Scotland, with a weekly audience of 928,000, had increased its share

marginally over the previous quarter -- 17,000 more people had tuned in

to the station.

Scotland also showed that it was bucking the trend when it came to the

much-maligned Radio One.

While audience figures for the whole of Britain continued to fall --

though at a slower rate than in the past -- in Scotland they showed a

slight increase (up from 27.9% to 28.5%).