Today FM has broken RTÉ's hold on the top 10 most popular radio programmes, with The Ray D'Arcy Show now the eighth most listened to show in the State, according to the latest JNLR/TNS mrbi survey.
This is the first time that a station other than RTÉ has produced a radio show in the top 10.
The survey for the period April 2006-March 2007 found that every one of RTÉ's 10 most listened to shows had lost listeners when compared with the January-December 2006 period.
However, RTÉ Radio 1 head Ana Leddy welcomed the results, pointing out that it had more than 1.3 million listeners every weekday. "And I am looking forward to the August book [ survey] which will give us a fuller picture of the impact of schedule changes on both RTÉ Radio 1 and RTÉ 2FM," she said.
RTÉ's flagship Morning Ireland show is still the State's most listened to show, but it lost 18,000 listeners. It now has 424,000 listeners, which is still significantly more than its nearest rival, Liveline.
Joe Duffy's phone-in show suffered one of the smallest losses in the survey, shedding just 1,000 listeners and holding its number two slot. The morning shows presented by Ryan Tubridy and Pat Kenny continued to lose listeners. Gerry Ryan lost 15,000 listeners after making gains in the last survey. Ray D'Arcy's entry into the top 10 was at the expense of 2FM's Saturday morning show, which fell out of the top 10 when it lost 17,000 listeners. The show is now presented by Ruth Scott after Will Leahy moved to a weekday slot.
There was also good news for Today FM in the market share figures as it increased its share by 0.3 per cent to 12.4 per cent.
RTÉ Radio 1 and RTÉ 2FM saw their market share fall marginally to 20.5 per cent (-0.4) and 12.6 per cent (-0.3) respectively. However, Lyric FM's market share increased by 0.2 per cent to 1.9 per cent.
Newstalk 106-108FM came out well in the first survey since it launched its national service on September 29th last year. It now has a national market share of 3.2 per cent, not far off its first-year target of 4 per cent.
The station's chief executive Elaine Geraghty said she was very pleased with its national performance in the first six months. "It's a good start and we are heading in the right direction," she said.
Its flagship programme The Right Hook picked up 42,000 more listeners after the station went national. Presenter George Hook competes with RTÉ's Drivetime show, which lost 8,000 listeners in the last survey period.
The show was presented by Rachael English until last September when it was taken over by Mary Wilson, Des Cahill and Dave Fanning. It now has 180,000 listeners, compared with 187,000 for Matt Cooper's The Last Word show. The Today FM show made the headlines in the previous survey when it overtook its RTÉ rival for the first time, but The Last Word has since lost 5,000 listeners. But Today FM's chief executive Willie O'Reilly said the results were "superlative" for the station. More than one million listeners were tuning in every week, he said.
"Ray D'Arcy is the man of the moment," he said. "He has brought his show to an all-time high of 248,000 listeners."
The JNLR survey found that 85 per cent of the adult population listen daily to a mix of national, regional and local radio. The market share of regional/local stations fell by 0.5 per cent to 50.5 per cent in the 7am-7pm period.
Highland Radio in Donegal continues to have the largest market share of a local station, at 64.4 per cent. It is followed by Mid West Radio in Mayo and Radio Kerry. In the southeast, Beat 102-103 FM increased its market share slightly to 11 per cent. In the competitive Dublin market, FM104 enjoyed the largest market share of 14.1 per cent, with 98FM hot on its heels at 14 per cent. One of the State's newest stations, Phantom 105.2 gained a market share of 0.7 per cent.
Down south, Cork 96FM/103 County Sound increased its market share to 53 per cent, while Red FM registered a slight decrease to 9.1 per cent.
