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PEOPLE AGED BETWEEN 15 and 34 made up the bulk of the viewers of this year’s Rose of Tralee, comprising 60% of those who tuned in.
Over half a million people switched over to RTÉ to watch New Zealander Keely O’Grady take the crown, with an average of 543,000 watching the final. Across the two nights, nearly 413,000 on average switched over to watch the 64th edition of the competition.
This is the first year that 15-34 year olds have made up the majority of viewers since the event returned from a hiatus forced on it by the Covid-19 pandemic, with this year seeing a 15% increase on 2022.
However, viewership numbers have not returned to those that the competition saw pre-pandemic. Between 2015 and 2018, the contest drew an average peak viewership of around 735,000. It saw a drop in 2019 to just under 550,000.
The numbers since the Kerry-based festival returned from its hiatus have been on the increase, however. This year’s contest saw on average nearly 30,000 more people watching the crowning of the winning rose compared to 2023.
Where the event has seen massive increases in the last few years have been in social media engagement.
Almost ten years ago, the festival bragged about Twitter engagements in the tens of thousands. In 2015 and 2016, the official accounts saw just over 55,000 tweets around the event.
This weekend, there were over 500,000 engagements across Facebook, X, Instagram, and TikTok, with posts by official accounts raking in over 5 million views across all platforms, an increase of almost 3 millon compared to last year.
The scope of the competition has similarly changed. RTÉ’s streaming service RTÉ Player recorded streams being viewed in 81 different countries across Europe, America, Asia, and the Middle East.
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God, you’d want to be desperate to watch this..
@Jamie Hinch: another waste of money
@Alan Moloney: ah sure, with that amount of viewers and associated advertising and sponsorship, it might actually be a money maker
@SYaxJ2Ts: RTE, money maker. What could go wrong
@Alan Moloney: young people?
The Lovely Girls Competition
@common sense: How original. Never heard that one before.
A cringe fest!
How is this calculated
@mickey mac: rang around probably
@mickey mac: my first thought…sounds like a PR gimmick, god knows RTE needs them.
@mickey mac: they interview the girls first about their lives and culture, family history etc then the budding rose will display a hidden talent then a panel of judges will give each budding rose points. Its calculated on computer and the person with the highest points wins.
@Sean: “PEOPLE AGED BETWEEN 15 and 34 made up the bulk of the viewers of this year’s Rose of Tralee, comprising 60% of those who tuned in.”… think thats what the commenter is referring to.
That’s because they’re all slating it on twitter in real time.
never mind that back the people of coolock no justice for them more unwanted moving in shocking
@Gerry Lynch: So “public unrest” of a few of the usual crowd is reason enough to disallow it?
@Wolfgang Bonow: you actually understood what he said ?
@offside again: Obviously not, that’s why I’m asking.
@Gerry Lynch: have you tried punctuation? it really helps understanding what you’re trying to say. even if it’s bigoted hogwash
@Gerry Lynch: Go crawl back under that sad pathetic bigot rock.
@Ian: you will learn in time what they all about u tube
How would they know the ages of who’s watching what .
@Paul A Kane: They monitor a sample of people and use that to represent the whole country
Only to watch through their fingers at the sheer cringe of it all.
Once again the consensus on the journal turned out to have no bearing on reality.
How surprising, not.
@P. J.: including your own.
Totally, totally embarrassing. God! So awful.
Waste of money
Steady decline in viewer numbers year after year..
@Fintan Stack: not since Covid, so depends on the time period that you’re looking at
It’s struggling if they feel they need to say this…
I genuinely thought the days of pageantry were behind us
Young people are so boring nowadays, its no surprise they would watch this drivel.
Daithi had his best ever run at it this year imho
Now that stat is a crock of sh iite.
@Gerry Lamont: How do you know?
All thanks to Ogra Fianna Fail
As a tralee man living in Dublin camp I have to hold my head in shame coz of that rubbish been passed off as quality entertainment year after year and yet not one born tralee person seen in any online pics who must take their hols when this rubbish hits their town on an annual basis
Great stuff
Didn’t know the RTE player could be viewed outside Ireland
Not true. Trying to convince advertisers. Not a chance young people would have any ounce of interest The Rose of Tralee. Dinosaur TV
What’s going on with young people? Wolfe Tones adoration, mullets, loving Rose Of Tralee. All very odd.
Surprised the woke foundation let this objectification of women happen..
I’d believe it. I’d say that any young person who was channel hopping would have been so dumbstruck that they would have been unable to.operate the remote control!
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