RTÉ has retained its hold on the ten most listened-to radio shows in the State, according to the latest JNLR/TNSmrbi listenership figures released this evening.
Eight of its ten most popular programmes saw increases in listenership in the period from October 2008 to September 2009, when compared with July 2008 to June 2009 figures.
RTÉ's flagship news programme Morning Irelandhas continued to gain listeners, with 467,000 people now tuning in to the early morning show. Joe Duffy's Livelinesaw a drop of 3,000 in listeners after a lengthy period of continuous gains but it remains the second most listened-to show.
Marian Finucane saw strong gains for her Saturday and Sunday shows while Ryan Tubridy's morning show gained 13,000 listeners.
Miriam O'Callaghan's debut with her Miriam Meets...show has been well received, according to the latest figures but it may e some time before her listenership is established, due to the way the figures are calculated.
She took over the Saturday morning Conversations with Eamon Dunphyslot in July of this year and this time slot saw a dramatic increase of 23,000 listeners when the October 2008-September 2009 period was compared with July 2008-June 2009. She moved to the Sunday morning slot in September.
Managing director of RTÉ Radio Clare Duignan welcomed the increase in listenership and said RTÉ Radio now had 18 of the top 20 radio programmes.
After some disappointing figures, she said RTÉ 2fm was "fighting back, and no better man to lead that assault than Gerry Ryan". The presenter gained an extra 3,000 listeners to bring him an audience of 305,000 which retains his position as presenter of the eighth most listened-to radio show in the State.
However, Today FM said it was a "red letter day" for the independent station as it had overtaken 2FM in daily market share for the first time ever. Today FM's market share increased by 0.1 per cent to 10.7 per cent 2FM's dropped by 0.4 per cent to 10.5 per cent.
Its chief executive Willie O'Reilly said overtaking 2FM was "probably the most significant business achievement in Today FM's recent history".
Ray D'Arcy's team was celebrating at Today FM with 246,000 listeners every morning - an increase of 11,000 since the last results in August. His is the most listened to show on the independent station.
There was bad news for his colleague Matt Cooper who saw the gap widen between his Last Wordevening show and RTÉ's Drivetime.He had 190,000 listeners in this survey, compared with 256,000 listeners for Mary Wilson's show.
Wilson said she was "thrilled" with the news. "This is my fourth season on Drivetimeand since 2007 we've really turned the show around. We're now the number one most listened to drive time programme."
There was also good news for Newstalk's drive time show. The Right Hook, presented by George Hook, gained 2,000 listeners on the previous survey, giving him a listenership of 112,000.
The survey results indicate that 87 per cent of the adult population was listening daily to a mix of national, regional and local radio throughout the country during the survey period. This is an increase of one per cent on the previous figures.
