For the station at the bottom of Dublin's radio pile, the glass yesterday was half-full rather than half-empty.
The latest JNLR figures show NewsTalk 106 still stuck at a miserable 2 per cent share of the capital's listeners over the past 12 months. The station's flagship shows, presented by David McWilliams, Damien Kiberd and George Hook, have a reach of 1 per cent each.
However, chief executive Mr Aidan Dunne took comfort from the station's performance over the past six months, when its share of listenership rose marginally to 3 per cent. The rise allowed him to claim grandly, in the traditional spirit of radio bosses responding to listenership figures, that NewsTalk was now "the fastest-growing radio station in Dublin".
"The 12-month listenership figures are meaningless because the period is too long. The JNLR survey has started to pick up the fact that we're moving, and moving at some speed."
All NewsTalk's "vital signs", such as the number of text messages and phone calls received, were now pointing to an increase in the "pulse rate" of the station, he insisted. The number of women listeners was rising significantly.
However, Mr Dunne conceded that it was taking "longer than expected" to build an audience and that the station required "substantial investment" if it was to stay on air. He declined to say how much money NewsTalk is losing but said its first set of financial results would be published in the next few weeks.
Staff told The Irish Times they believed the station was doing better than the JNLR survey indicated.
"We still have a lot of work to do to improve our standards, but it's frustrating to see these figures when our private polls tell us we have a 9 per cent reach," said one journalist. Another expressed concern about a lack of resources. "You can't have cheap talk radio and run a good news service. Otherwise, you'll always be employing cheap labour who don't know the capital of this and the leader of that."
Mr Dunne said FM104, whose managing director Mr Dermot Hanrahan has been trying to sell his share in NewsTalk for some time, had not yet found a buyer.
NewsTalk has enough funding to last until October, when a new round of fundraising is due. However, far from being despondent, Mr Dunne suggested yesterday that the station could consolidate its achievement by bidding for a national news licence if such a service is mooted by the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland.
