MOST OF RTÉ’s leading presenters saw a surge in listeners in the latest radio listenership figures released yesterday but Ryan Tubridy’s audience declined.
The 2FM presenter lost 4,000 listeners in the latest JNLR/Ipsos MRBI survey, which covers the period April 2011 to March 2012, and compares it with the January to December 2011 period.
Tubridy’s reduced audience was in contrast to an increase of 15,000 listeners for Ray D’Arcy, his Today FM rival. He now has 249,000 listeners compared with Ryan Tubridy’s listenership of 172,000.
Hector Ó hEochagáin, who hosts the 2FM breakfast slot, saw a drop in listeners of 2,000 but Colm Hayes, who follows the Tubridy slot, gained 1,000 listeners.
Today FM welcomed the figures, saying the independent station was “trouncing 2FM”. Chief executive Peter McPartlin said the station had “reinforced its position as the leading independent station in the country, with over 50,000 new listeners tuning in every week since the last survey. Listeners, especially those in the 20-44 age bracket, are coming back to the station in their thousands.”
RTÉ Radio One did much better, with every one of the top 10 most-listened-to programmes picking up listeners. Weekend shows fared particularly well.
Playback, presented by Marian Richardson, gained 23,000 listeners. Marian Finucane’s success in the Saturday and Sunday morning slots continued, with gains of 20,000 listeners on Saturday morning and 15,000 listeners on Sunday morning. George Lee’s The Business gained 18,000 listeners while Miriam O’Callaghan’s Sunday morning show picked up 15,000 listeners.
Morning Ireland is still the State’s most-listened-to programme with 449,000 listeners while listenership to Joe Duffy’s Liveline remains strong at 417,000.
While Today with Pat Kenny gained 4,000 listeners, he slipped from sixth to eighth place in the top 10, due to a surge in listeners to The Business and The John Murray Show. The latter show gained 7,000 listeners.
RTÉ Radio’s managing director, Clare Duignan, said the figures were “a real achievement in the face of ever-more-stiff competition” and were “a testament to the quality and breadth of content available”.
The drivetime current affairs shows on RTÉ, Today FM and Newstalk all showed gains in listeners.
RTÉ’s Drivetime with Mary Wilson had 245,000 listeners, compared with 166,000 for Matt Cooper’s The Last Word, and 130,000 for Newstalk’s The Right Hook, with George Hook.
Newstalk welcomed the figures, saying the national station 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 chief executive Frank Cronin.
The results show Ireland is still a nation of radio listeners. Some 85 per cent of adults listened to radio every weekday during the survey period. An average adult listens to almost four hours of daytime radio a day.
Local radio continued to perform strongly, reaching more than 40 per cent of the local adult population daily in many areas.
Highland Radio, Tipp FM, Radio Kerry and MWR hold the majority share position in their areas, based on the share of minutes it was listened to during the 7am-7pm period. FM104 had the largest market share of the Dublin stations, at 11.4 per cent, for that time period. This was followed by Q102 at 9.2 per cent and 98FM at 8.7 per cent.
