RADIO LISTENERS have continued to tune out from weekday shows in their thousands, the latest results from the JNLR/Ipsos MRBI survey show.
The recession has left its mark on radio schedules, with falls in audiences for shows at peak commuting times. They include Morning Ireland and Drivetime on RTÉ, Matt Cooper’s The Last Word on Today FM and The Right Hook on Newstalk.
Morning Ireland, the State’s most listened to programme, lost 14,000 listeners in this survey covering the period July 2009-June 2010, and compares it with the period April 2009-March 2010.
Liveline retained its No 2 slot, but lost 8,000 listeners. Drivetime lost 7,000 listeners, while Today FM’s The Last Word lost 13,000 listeners. Newstalk’s The Right Hook lost 1,000 listeners.
The 2FM morning slot occupied by Gerry Ryan until his death in April saw a loss of 10,000 listeners when compared with the last survey. Colm Hayes and Lucy Kennedy took over the slot on May 10th, towards the end of the survey period.
Today FM’s Ray D’Arcy was one of the few presenters to increase his audience when compared with the last survey. His morning show picked up 4,000 listeners. RTÉ’s Marian Finucane gained 1,000 listeners for her Sunday morning show, but lost 1,000 for her Saturday show – the third most listened to programme in the State.
Weekend review show Playback gained listeners, as did John Murray’s The Business. This augurs well for Murray, who is to replace Ryan Tubridy in the daily 9am slot. Tubridy will leave the slot to present Gerry Ryan’s 2FM slot.
Today FM overtook 2FM in market share in this survey, making it the second most listened to national radio station. Its chief executive Willie O’Reilly said this was “a fantastic achievement” in a very difficult climate. He noted that The Ray D’Arcy Show was now the most popular radio show among 20-44-year-olds.
RTÉ Radio 1 and 2FM recorded small decreases in market share, at 22.6 per cent (-0.3) and 9.3 per cent (-0.4) respectively. Newstalk increased its share to 4 per cent, up 0.1 per cent. Today FM and RTÉ Lyric FM retained 9.6 per cent and 1.6 per cent respectively.
Newstalk chief executive Frank Cronin said the station was happy to achieve a share of 4 per cent, and highlighted a year-on-year increase of 13 per cent for afternoon presenter Sean Moncrieff.
The survey results indicate that 86 per cent of the adult population listens daily to a mix of national, regional, multi-city and local radio throughout the country – unchanged since the last survey.
Highland Radio still had the biggest local station market share, at 63.7 per cent, down 0.4 per cent on the previous survey. Tipp FM’s market share rose by 2.5 per cent to 57.8 per cent while Radio Kerry saw a two per cent increase in its share to 55.6 per cent.
In Dublin, 98FM again recorded the highest market share figure of the local Dublin stations at 10.9 per cent, but this represented a drop of 0.7 per cent.
Increases in market share figure were recorded for Q102, Spin 1038 and Country Mix 106.8FM. 4FM, the new multi-city service, increased its market share by 0.5 per cent to 2 per cent.
