Media & Marketing: A new set of market-share figures for Dublin sent to all the commercial radio stations has delivered good news for several leading broadcasters, but underlined once again RTÉ's weak position at certain times of the day.
The research from Business and Market Research Ltd, headed by Mr Barry Jones, son of pollster Jack Jones, covers March and deals strictly with market share rather than listenership.
The figures are entirely separate from the JNLR figures, which are due to be issued at the end of the month by TNS/mrbi.
Business and Market Research, which is well known for its work in tracking advertising campaigns, surveyed 300 people in Dublin by telephone and found RTÉ Radio 1 and 2FM were still the dominant stations.
They held 19 per cent and 14 per cent shares respectively in the crucial period between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.
The company looked at market share in the 15-to-54 age band and this delivered good news for RTÉ 1 in terms of Morning Ireland.
This programme helped to deliver the RTÉ 1 a healthy 20 per cent market share in the 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. band.
Marian Finucane's show also airs during this segment.
In "mid-morning", though, RTÉ 1's share dropped dramatically, to 13 per cent.
This bracket, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., includes the shows of Pat Kenny and John Creedon.
In this segment, Gerry Ryan helped 2FM secure an impressive 17 per cent share while Ray D'Arcy helped to give Today FM a 16 per cent share.
FM104 was also strong at this time with a 19 per cent share, well ahead of its rival 98 FM.
Q102, formerly Lite FM, will take solace from the figures. Only a few weeks since its relaunch, it has already grabbed a 9 per cent share overall and 10 per cent share in the mid-morning slot.
For NewsTalk, the findings were more mixed but in the evening drive time slot, from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., the results were positive.
George Hook's show, The Right Hook, managed a market share of 9 per cent, only two percentage points behind the 11 per cent reached by Today FM, which offers Matt Cooper on The Last Word between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m.
RTÉ 1 was solid in the evening slot, with Five Seven Live pushing its market share to 21 per cent.
New ads outlet
The Dublin agency A.F.A. O'Meara has reported plans for a 12th television channel aimed at Irish advertisers. Viacom, the owners of MTV and Nickelodeon, will offer advertising space on TMS (The Music Station).
TMS will be broadcast to Dublin viewers every day between 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. on NTL's and BSkyB's digital platforms. O'Meara said airtime was being priced similarly to the Dublin youth radio station, Spin FM. "The Irish television advertising landscape is becoming more and more fragmented, and is now just short of the 14 regional services that British advertisers have to plan in relation to the ITV network.
"Furthermore, advertisers actually have 14 channels to choose from in Ireland if UTV and Channel 4 are included in a 32-county advertising schedule," it said.
Meanwhile, RTÉ has begun taking bookings for this year's European football championships in Portugal. Despite the fact that Ireland failed to qualify, RTÉ is pitching audiences of more than 400,000 viewers for the England matches and final-stage matches. The final will cost a premium rate of €8,000 per 30- second slot.
This compares with €5,000 which TV3 charged for slots in their coverage of this week's Champions League clash between Arsenal and Chelsea.
Conduit 11850 deal
Conduit, the directory inquiry service, has agreed a partnership with Vodafone Ireland to promote the 11850 directory-inquiries service jointly to Vodafone customers.
Vodafone has been operating its own directory-inquiry service, 11844, but this ceases to operate this week. Instead, customers will be greeted with a recorded message recommending the 11850 service.
According to Ms Laragh McNeece, voice product manager at Vodafone Ireland, "Vodafone 11850 provides our customers with a high quality, friendly and efficient service."
Conduit and Vodafone already have a similar partnership in the UK, where Conduit's 118888 number is the preferred option on the Vodafone network
Emmet Oliver can be reached at
