Dublin's new "easy-listening" station Lite FM has captured an impressive 17 per cent of listeners in its first four months of broadcasting, according to the latest JNLR/MRBI listenership figures. The interim survey covers April to September and it was the first time that the independent music station, which began broadcasting in May, was included.
The strong debut exceeds Lite FM's expectations which were to win more than 10 per cent of Dublin listeners in the 35-year-plus age group. Twenty per cent of its listeners are in that age group but the diet of middle-of-the road music also appeals to 15 to 34-yearolds. Another unexpected finding is that Lite FM is significantly more popular with men. It was initially expected that Lite FM would succeed only if it managed to win over RTE Radio 1's listeners. However, the survey indicates this has not been the case.
RTE Radio 1's figures remain unchanged with the station still having a national listenership of 864,000 or 30 per cent. Lyric FM, which is owned by RTE, also re mains unchanged with a national listenership of 3 per cent.
2FM shows a 1 per cent increase to 29 per cent. Its rebranding, which began in May, included intensive advertising of the station and a change of programming and presenters.
The popularity of independent local radio continues to grow. Listenership has increased by 1 per cent to 55 per cent, which means that 1.6 million people tune into one of the State's local independent stations each weekday.
Today FM also showed a 1 per cent increase to 15 per cent listenership nationally. Dublin's other independent stations, the music-driven FM 104 and 98 FM, have figures of 24 per cent and 23 per cent respectively.
