There was good news for most of RTÉ’s leading presenters in the latest radio listenership figures released this evening with strong surges for Marian Finucane, Miriam O’Callaghan, Playback’s Marian Richardson and George Lee.
However, 2FM’s Ryan Tubridy saw a fall of 4,000 listeners for his morning show. This contrasted with an increase of 15,000 listeners for Today FM rival Ray D’Arcy. He now has 249,000 listeners compared with Ryan Tubridy’s listenership of 172,000.
The latest JNLR/Ipsos MRBI report into radio listenership covers the period from April 2011 to March 2012 and compares it with the January to December 2011 period.
Morning Ireland is still the State’s most listened to programme with 449,000 listeners, an increase of 3,000 on the previous survey. In second place, Liveline’s Joe Duffy’s listenership remains strong at 417,000. Marian Finucane’s success in the Saturday and Sunday morning slots continues with gains of 20,000 listeners on Saturday morning, and 15,000 listeners on Sunday morning.
While Today with Pat Kenny gained 4,000 listeners, he slipped from sixth to eighth place in the top ten due to a surge in listeners to The Business, fronted by George Lee, and The John Murray Show.
Today FM welcomed the figures, saying the independent station was “trouncing 2FM”. Its chief executive Peter McPartlin noted that Ray D’Arcy’s three-hour show had 77,000 more listeners than Ryan Tubridy’s two-hour show.
It’s a busy time for The Ray D’Arcy Show as it releases the official Republic of Ireland Song for Euro 2012 tomorrow. The Rocky Road to Poland was written by the show’s listeners and performed by a group that includes Damien Dempsey, Bressie, Danny O’Reilly, The Dubliners and the Irish Euro 2012 squad.
RTÉ Radio managing director Clare Duignan said the figures were “a real achievement in the face of ever-more stiff competition” and they were “a testament to the quality and breadth of content available on these national stations”. She said RTÉ Radio had grown its national daily reach from 34 to 35 per cent.
Newstalk also welcomed the figures, saying it was now reaching 308,000 listeners daily – an increase of 28,000 on the corresponding period last year. “Newstalk has achieved a market share of 5 per cent, up from 4.2 per cent year on year. These are landmark barriers for Newstalk to break,” said its chief executive, Frank Cronin.
The results show that Ireland is still a nation of radio listeners. Some 85 per cent of all adults listened to radio every weekday during the survey period. They tuned in on average for almost four hours per day during the prime 7am to 7pm period.
