RTÉ's long standing dominance of radio listenership continues, but its position is increasingly threatened by the commercial sector, new figures show.
The Joint National Listenership Research (JNLR) survey for January to December 2005 shows RTÉ Radio One's Morning Ireland in an unassailable position with 476,000 listeners. While this was a static performance, it was a strong outcome considering the decline for other flagship shows.
Yesterday the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) compared the 2005 calendar year figures with the period between October 2004 and September 2005. However, most stations and advertising agencies ignored this comparison and used simple year-on-year comparisons instead.
Based on these most of the main RTÉ programmes suffered a decline, although weekend programmes like Playback and Mooney Goes Wild on One bucked the trend. During 2005 RTÉ's two main stations - 2FM and RTÉ Radio One - underwent some change. In the case of the latter Marian Finucane moved out of weekday broadcasting and was replaced by Ryan Tubridy.
It is hard to say whether this change has been successful, but it appears RTÉ One can rely on thousands of more mature listeners to support the station, where as 2FM is at the mercy of younger, more fickle listeners. The figures appear to suggest that the greying profile of 2FM is putting off some younger listeners.
In the commercial sector the most intense competition appears to be in the evening. Last night NewsTalk 106, which is seeking a national licence, said its presenter George Hook had "floored" his rival Matt Cooper on Today FM. Mr Hook's programme now has 35,000 listeners and NewsTalk chief executive Elaine Geraghty said she was particularly pleased at this outcome.
Today FM for its part pointed to the resilience of Cooper's show, the Last Word, with Today FM managing director Willie O'Reilly saying it was a very credible performance. Today FM's main success story, however, was Ray D'Arcy, who was the only presenter in the commercial sector to gatecrash the top 10 programmes, normally dominated by RTÉ flagship shows.
Q102 has managed to make an older demographic work in its favour. Its listenership in Dublin was up 1 per cent in a highly competitive market. The youth station Spin 103.8 also turned in a reasonable performance.
In the traditional battle between 98FM and FM 104, the latter station was well ahead.