WHO SAID young people are not interested in current affairs or traditional media? Yesterday's JNLR radio listenership figures show that Radio One shows Morning Irelandand Livelineare attracting a younger audience.
"For the first time ever, Morning Irelandenters the top 20 programmes among 15-34 year olds and Livelineenters the top 20 for 20-44 year olds," RTÉ Radio's managing director Clare Duignan beamed yesterday.
It’s been something of a baptism of fire for Duignan since taking charge of the radio division in February. Revenues are down, job cuts are planned and 2FM continues to lose audience share.
The recession has had at least one positive spin-off, with listeners tuning in for Radio One’s heavyweight current affairs coverage in greater numbers across the day.
With 2FM planning to tune out teenagers in a bid to regain some ratings, Duignan is banking on RTÉ’s fledgling digital audio broadcasting (DAB) radio stations to attract a younger audience for the State broadcaster.
“For an awful lot of teens and those in their early 20s, a lot of their consumption is music and they’re not listening to radio for that, they’re going online,” she told me this week.
“In a way, the digital world is probably the biggest competitor for 2FM. We have been getting more active in that whole area. They [RTÉ’s seven digital stations] are something that I believe will really connect with younger listeners.”
She cited the example of RTÉ’s dance station Pulse, which uses about 40 young DJs from around the country. “They are all out in clubs the length and breadth of the country saying to people ‘you should be listening to Pulse’.”
Digital radio might coming to a neighbourhood near you but with just 20,000 DAB radios in the country, it won’t be anytime soon.
“I think RTÉ needs to get more in behind letting people know about the digital services,” Duignan said. “I’d love to see the commercial broadcasting sector get in behind DAB again and Willie O’Reilly [of the Independent Broadcasters of Ireland] and I are planning to talk about that in the near future.”
Duignan cited her teenage son as an example of how younger folk go online for their music rather than tuning into radio. With one notable exception, that is. “He listens to Lyric FM to put him to sleep at night but that’s fair enough. At the end of the day that’s what you want to listen to. That makes me really proud.”
