On air yesterday Today FM was celebrating. Off air, while regretting that the JNLR/MRBI survey did not lift it over the 10 per cent threshold, station staff and executives were satisfied that a daytime pop-music format was taking the station in the right direction.
A sign of Today FM's lowly starting point, however, is that the only national independent station now noisily claims to be, at last, "Ireland's biggest independent radio station".
Even that claim is open to debate, with FM104's Co Dublin listenership being roughly equivalent to Today FM's audience throughout the State.
There is a great deal these unrefined weekday "listened yesterday" figures do not tell us. What is Today FM's actual market share? Is the station losing out because of the abrupt transition every weekday at 5 p.m. from lightweight pop to two hours of serious current affairs (with Eamon Dunphy), followed by the sophisticated musical stylings, as they say, of John Kelly and Donal Dineen? Some of what the numbers do tell us is bad news for Today FM. A new format primarily aimed at attracting "housewives" (the survey's term) has lured all of 5 per cent in that category; and the station's Co Dublin figure is only 59,000, compared with about 350,000 for the local pop stations.
However, other statistical details are cause for optimism. Today FM listeners are well spread around the State, with a 13 per cent figure in Cork - nearly twice the Dublin figure; and the station's audience tends toward the young (14 per cent of 25- to 34-year-olds) and affluent (13 per cent of ABC1s). Taken together, the figures suggest the station's profile is still coloured by its upmarket evening programming.
They also indicate that Today FM succeeds (relatively) outside Dublin among young listeners for the same reason that 2FM and Atlantic 252 are huge there: most local stations cater more for older listeners, with country and MOR music, so any station with a pop format targets an under-served audience.
So should the rest of us celebrate? For a few hours a day, Today FM provides a real national alternative (in current affairs and music) to RTE. For the rest of the time it's an inoffensive stopping point on the dial for more and more restless listeners.
But is this enough? Last August, a 4 per cent "listened yesterday" figure for Radio Ireland - with its more ambitious, Radio 1-ish programming - was widely regarded as a complete disaster, forcing the relaunch as Today FM. With all its marketing efforts and strict formatting, Today FM has managed only to double that audience. It's growing, but it still has a way to go.