Weekend listening figures for Radio Ireland mirror the disappointing weekday performance published earlier this month. The weekend figures show that Radio Ireland is achieving only between 1 and 2 per cent of the listening public on Saturday and Sunday.
The figures are the result of a survey undertaken for Joint National Listenership Research by the market survey company, MRBI, published yesterday.
Radio listening itself goes down at the weekend. During the week, almost 90 per cent of the population listens to radio. At the weekends, that falls to 61 per cent and as low as 50 per cent in Dublin.
In the past, this low level of radio listening meant that weekend figures rarely figured in analysis of radio performance.
However, with the establishment of Radio Ireland and the intensified battle for the radio audience, even the low weekend figures are being looked at carefully for signs of life in the new national station.
The spokesman for Radio Ireland declined to comment on the results.
The results for Saturday show that in terms of audience reach - the number of people who listened to a station at any time - RTE's Radio 1 achieved 18 per cent, 2FM 16 per cent, Radio Ireland 1 per cent, and local stations combined, 30 per cent.
When the figures are analysed to discover the market share, RTE Radio 1 goes up to 26 per cent, 2FM to 23 per cent, Radio Ireland 1 per cent, all local stations, 50 per cent. The figures for Sunday are only marginally different.
In Dublin, Radio Ireland is again only achieving 1 per cent, but with only 9,000 people figuring as having listened at any time on Saturday the margin of error is such that the figures become almost meaningless.
Even programmes that have been critically well received, such as Murray and Mackey on Saturdays and the Sunday Supplement, are scoring 1 per cent, with about 15,000 listeners for the Sunday Supplement, for instance.
As with the weekly figures, Radio Ireland is suffering from the fact that most people have never listened to the station. It is difficult to use the figures as a barometer of what people think of the station, when they have never heard it.
Radio Ireland is currently engaged in researching the market, though who is being surveyed is a mystery, since more than 80 per cent of the population has never heard the station. It is also planning a major marketing campaign and changes in the schedule.
It is believed that members of the regulatory body, the Independent Radio and Television Commission (IRTC), which will have to approve any changes in the schedule, would prefer leaving the present programme schedule in place and favour marketing the station. There is some fear, fed by recent changes in the schedule, that Radio Ireland might panic and turn more and more towards a music-driven format in order to achieve an audience. However, sources in Radio Ireland deny that, saying there is no plan to change the 60 per cent music and 40 per cent talk format that was agreed with the IRTC before the station went on air last March.