The general election lured listeners to RTÉ Radio 1, and to local and regional stations, in the final three months of last year, with all of Radio 1’s weekday peak-time shows growing their audience.
But amid a marketwide swelling in radio listenership to record levels, Brendan O’Connor’s weekend Radio 1 programme proved the strongest performer, the Joint National Listenership Research (JNLR) figures for 2024 show.
Mr O’Connor added 16,000 listeners on a Saturday, taking his audience to 358,000, the highest since the pandemic, while his Sunday listenership surged by 27,000 to 366,000, the highest recorded in this time slot in at least a decade.
On weekdays, Morning Ireland added 1,000 listeners since the last survey, which covered the October 2023-September 2024 period, to register an audience of 466,000 for the calendar year. This meant it comfortably retained its place as the most listened-to programme on Irish radio.
Oliver Callan now has 349,000 listeners after a full year on RTÉ Radio 1 at 9am, with his audience rising 11,000 since the last survey. It is also 6,000 higher than the listenership he inherited a year ago.
Today with Claire Byrne also has 349,000 listeners, up 7,000 since the last survey, while Louise Duffy’s audience of 228,000 climbed 5,000 and News at One added 5,000 listeners to reach 307,000.
Joe Duffy’s Liveline continued its recent good fortunes, adding 7,000 since the last survey, with its audience of 314,000 advancing 11,000 year-on-year. Ray D’Arcy added 6,000 to reach 194,000, while Drivetime rose 5,000 to a listenership of 226,000.
Despite this across-the-board audience growth, Radio 1’s market share decreased slightly to 20.6 per cent, down from 20.7 per cent, due to growth elsewhere in the radio market. Local and regional stations attracted more listeners and grew their collective share to 53.7 per cent.
For RTÉ 2FM, which will shortly launch its recently announced new schedule after a number of interim presenter stints, it was a more mixed picture, although its breakfast slot audience grew by 10,000 to 152,000 and its drivetime show held its ground at 145,000.
The station’s market share was 5.8 per cent, up from 5.7 per cent, although RTÉ pointed to a more significant rise in its share among the target 15–34-year-old age group. This rose to 12.1 per cent, up from 11.6 per cent.
On Bauer Media Audio’s national stations, the best performing weekday shows compared to the last survey were Newstalk’s Lunchtime Live with Andrea Gilligan, up 5,000 to 139,000; and Moncrieff, up 7,000 to 112,000; while Today FM’s Weekend Breakfast with Alison Curtis grew its Sunday audience adding 7,000 listeners to reach 157,000.
On the same station, The Last Word with Matt Cooper held steady at 167,000.
Elsewhere there was slippage, although The Pat Kenny Show on Newstalk remains the largest on commercial radio, bringing in 237,000 listeners. This is down 4,000 since the last survey, but still up 21,000 year-on-year.
Newstalk’s national market share overtook Today FM’s despite edging down from 8.5 per cent to 8.4 per cent, as its sister station saw its share decline from 8.9 per cent to 8.3 per cent.
Today FM noted that its record-breaking survey in the final quarter of 2023 had fallen out of the most recent 12-month survey period and that this “has had an impact on our numbers”. The data still highlighted its “continued strength”, it said.
The JNLR survey, compiled on behalf of the radio industry by research firm Ipsos, shows 3.9 million people listened to the radio every week last year. That was up by 105,000 listeners compared to 2023.
The average weekday audience listening at any time between 7am and 7pm is now at 1,095,000, the highest ever recorded, according to Radiocentre Ireland.
“It is fantastic to see record audience numbers listening to Irish radio,” said the industry body’s chief executive Ciarán Cunningham.
“Today’s figures are a great reminder that Irish radio is such a central part of people’s lives, with brilliant content being consumed by millions of listeners every single day.”
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