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IT WAS A big day for Radio One today, which continued its domination of the radiowaves with a slew of great JNLR results.
The latest figures show that 83% of all adults – that’s around 3 million people aged over 15 – listen to the radio every day.
More than half tune into their local or regional station, while 46% listen to a national station.
The big success for Today FM is the Breakfast Show, presented by Ian Dempsey, which is up 6,000 since the last figures, with an audience share of 187,000.
Ian Dempsey said:
I’m delighted with the figures. We’ve got a great team of people working behind the scenes and we still have fun with it every day. I think listeners tune in to the Breakfast Show for its positivity. The whole country seems to be returning to a positive mood and I’d hope that our show reflects that mood.
Today FM holds onto its position as Ireland’s largest independent radio station, with a weekly audience of almost 900,000 listeners (891,000).
Anton Savage is down 8,000 year-on-year, with 183,000 audience share. However, the station pointed out that his show has only just passed its first year.
Dermot and Dave are down 2,000, with an audience share of 121,000. Louise Duffy is down 4,000 with an audience of 94,000.
Matt Cooper is down 3,000 with an audience share of 132,000. “It was a brilliant quarter for Matt so we know that he will pick up in the next book [of JNLR figures],” said a Today FM spokesperson.
Alison Curtis is up 6,000 on Saturdays, and Phil Cawley is up 8,000 on Sundays.
Tim Collins, CEO of Newstalk, said 2015 was a great year for the station. 709,000 people now listen in weekly, and its year-on-year listenership is up by 25,000.
“Year-on-year we have seen strong growth across our prime-time schedule,” he said.
This puts us on a strong footing for 2016 as we embark on our in-depth election coverage and take to the road touring battleground counties to deliver reports from the smallest towns to the largest cities.
Chris Donoghue and Ivan Yates’ Newstalk Breakfast is down 7,000 since the last results in November, but up 6,000 year-on-year, with an audience share of 171,000.
Pat Kenny is down 1,000 since last time out, with an audience share of 133,000.
Sean Moncrieff is attracting the same level of listeners.
The Right Hook is down 3,000 since the previous figures, but up 19,000 year-on-year, and has daily listeners of 145,000.
Radio 1
It has been a “phenomenal day” for Radio 1, a spokesperson said.
Every programme has had huge gains right across the board. It’s been a winner across all boards.
Morning Ireland is up 9,000 listeners since the last figures in November, but up 22,000 year-on-year. It now has the biggest listenership in the country, with an audience share of 448,000.
Ryan Tubridy started his new show last year, and has seen his audience grow by 7,000 since the last figures were released.
Sean O’Rourke‘s listenership has grown by 33,000 year-on-year, with an audience share of 331,000.
Ronan Collins has seen a growth of 11,000 year-on-year, with a 220,000 audience share.
News At One has seen a 34,000 leap in listenership in a year, with 346,000 people tuning in overall. Liveline has seen a 9,000 listener growth year-on-year, with a 387,000 audience share.
Ray D’Arcy has seen a 22,000 growth year-on-year, with 215,000 listeners.
Drivetime is up 18,000 year-on year, with a 240,000 audience share.
Marian Finucane is down 4,000 since the last figures, but up 26,000 year-on-year. Saturday with Claire Byrne is up 39,000 in a year.
Miriam O’Callaghan is up 39,000 year-on-year and 5,000 since the previous figures.
Over in 2FM, there were drops across the board except for Louise McSharry.
A spokesperson said that the new schedule had launched three months ago, with a rebrand only launched in the past few weeks.
She said that they will hopefully see the effect of the rebrand in the next round of figures. “It’s very early days for a brand new schedule,” she said.
Breakfast Republic is down 15,000 since the last figures in November, with an audience share of 181,000.
Nicky Byrne is down 6,000, with an audience share of 157,00.
Tracy Clifford, who started her show last year, is at 129,000 listeners every day.
Eoin McDermott is down 2,000, with an audience share of 117,000.
However, Louise McSharry has seen her listenership rise by 3,000 year-on-year. She returned to her show last April after receiving treatment for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.
Radio reaction
Speaking to TheJournal.ie, Tom Maguire, head of Radio 1, said that the success was due to a “project that we embarked on unwittingly at the time” after Pat Kenny’s departure.
He noted how Sean O’Rourke and Ryan Tubridy had come into the schedule, and that there had been a “huge growth” in the number of women on air at the station.
In addition, its younger listenership has grown for the ages 15 – 34. Radio 1 is now “a station for all ages”, said Maguire, “and that is I think because people tuned into us for the last year or two, they liked what they heard and stayed with us”. He also noted that they had put a lot into music and comedy in the schedule.
While Radio 1 “came late” to social media, Maguire said they are now “actively engaged” with it, particularly across Twitter, to which he partly attributed the growth in younger listeners.
Sean O’Rourke is now at a stage where he has a bigger audience than Pat Kenny had on the last full year he was with us.
Meanwhile, head of 2FM Dan Healy said that they have seen a “significant gain” in listeners aged 15 – 34.
“Last night I would have been nervous for sure,” he said. “I thought we were going to get hammered because of [the recent changes].” Ryan Tubridy left the schedule last year.
He noted that from a revenue point of view, advertising agencies understand what the station is trying to achieve, which is “is giving us great satisfaction”. He pointed out that Breakfast Republic is just 7,000 listeners behind Ian Dempsey’s show.
Today “feels like a launching pad” for 2FM, added Healy. The biggest challenge for the show, he said, is “change”, recounting how a listener since 1979 had recently written to say she no longer wanted to listen because of the changes. “I would prefer if she didn’t,” said Healy, describing how he understood as the station had changed.
Healy said it was sad to see some colleagues go, and described it as challenging “talking to people you admire saying you can no longer be on the daytime schedule”.
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The JNLR survey also noted that:
Local radio continues to be a strong performer in the individual radio markets across the country – in many areas reaching more than 40% of the local adult population daily. In particular, on the criterion of share of minutes listened during prime 7am to 7pm, Highland Radio, MWR, and Radio Kerry hold the majority share position in their respective franchise areas.
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Used to listen to Newstalk but Chris Donaghue does my head in with his politically correct büllshit…….
I stopped due to him too. That, and Moncrieff is trying too hard these days.
If there is a PC bandwagon doing the rounds you can be sure that Sean Moncrieff will be on it. A decent enough interviewer though. I’ll give him that. That said it, most of the people he interviews are book-pluggers.
Chris Donoghue personifies the modern politically correct ‘New Man’.
Incapable of uttering an honest opinion on anything.
He doesn;t have an opinion. He suckles on Ivan’s tittie.
Sean Montcrieffe has a problem with the letter ‘E’
University becomes UnivUrsity
Have a listen.
I used to listen to newstalk breakfast also but for me Ivan did my head in.
Rte lies and propaganda https://youtu.be/aG7JmlQXBt0
It’s Ivan does my head in. Too much blue shirt propaganda.
Even without Kenny? Funny the way they tried to convince us they couldn’t do without him when he was on 90K a year.
That breakfast republic is torture, all they play is cheesy shite dance crap you hear in every girls clothes shop.
I blame Jennuendo Maguire
Now would be a good time to cut RTE’s budget again then. Let them compete in the real world.
These figures mean nothing as is. The true success story here is that Newstalk are, on a shoestring budget, a tiny tiny fractions of the resources and finances, are solidly competing with RTE.
For music stations we need to go the way of the Americans and play music.
Nobody wants to hear a DJ.
That was ok 20 years ago before the internet. Peoples heads are too full of media commentary.
They want peace.
That’s why people are tuning in to Phantom.
Less is more.
I’m surprised at how small Lyrics listenership is, I find myself listening to it more and more, except for John Kelly who can play some woeful arty farty shite.
Never a more accurate head line on the Journal, RTE is Pro Fine Gael.
€290 million in tv licence fees should give them just a slight advantage over the competition.
Roll on truthful alternative media.
Roll on the infowar.
I can safely say I have never listened to any RTE Radio 1 show apart from the odd news or sports bulletin. Can’t stand any of the presenters. Bunch of overpaid talentless idiots
How do u know if you haven’t listened to any of them? I don’t listen either but I can’t say anymore than that.
Beano given that you have such strong optimists on RTE which you never listen to according to yourself I just wondering if you have any strong opinions on books you haven’t read or movies you haven’t seen that you want to share with us?
I’ve watched Duffy, Finucane, O’Callaghan, D’Arcy on telly and thought they were all $hite. I think it’s a fairly accurate assumption to think that they will also be $hite on the radio. Are you saying they’re not?
Good judge of character Beano.
Spot on!!!
Overpaid Dry Handpuppet Lackeys.
RTE should be scrapped
Sink or swim. Cut them loose. RTE takes vast amounts of public money to allegedly provide a public service AND they take money for colossal amounts of advertising. The RTE player is basically unusable now with all the advertising on it. Where is all that money going to? Into the pockets of the friends and relations, and of course their ”stars”.. The same talentless ”stars” that wouldn’t be poached to make the tea at a local radio station in Moldova, never mind the BBC.
Ryan Tubridy is FF, Miriam O’ Callaghan is FF. The media giant’s right hand woman Lucy Gaffney is going for top RTE job.
Any people like Miriam who has a brother running in the elections for ff should step aside during the elections and that goes for any one else in RTE. It is the state broadcaster and should be neutral.
RTE lost two of their best when they SHAFTED John Clarke & then let Alf Mc go too
Can’t wait to pay my broadcast licence in 2016
There was a European Court ruling a few years ago that state funded media outlets were not to engage in ratings wars.
Doesn’t seem to have had any effect on the chiefs at Montrose though.
The real test?
Take away the license fee. let these people stand on their own two feet on a level playing field.
Doubt if RTE would even make the top four.
Agreed Oran,
The are lots of instances where State funding or tax exempt status needs to be reviewed and removed. The two biggies being RTE and the RC Church.
When Bowie died, I heard ‘music’ on the radio for the first time in years. I guarantee Eurovision 2016 selection is one big free promo for a Nicky Byrne album down the line. RTE are an embarrassment.
I grab the morning news headlines on RTE Radio 1 and then switch over to BBC Radio 4 or LBC London.
I usually switch away when they start repeating the mantra “RTE Supporting the Arts” over and over and over again ad infinitum.
I heard that mantra repeated 5 times in 5 minutes a few months back.
(Reminds me of the “Allah Akbar” you hear endlessly on Middle East news reports).
I hit the button.
Joe Duffy is amazing, I love listening to Irish people moaning !
Now, if only we had a left wing radio station we could infer an election result.
Matt Cooper brings me home everyday. He’s my fave.
Cooper is – like all Newstalk presenters – a DOBshite, all their integrity as journalists is completely compromised as long as they live off the purse strings of their media oligarch despot of a boss.
Maybe but they extremely one sided
Bbc 4 extra great station
RTE Supporting the Arts?
Like dropping Lyric FM’s hour-long Jazz Alley presented by Donald Helme..
One hour of jazz a week which used to be 90 minutes.
Another example of mediocrity in management.
Good results or Journal reprinting hype ?
‘Everybody needs a bosom for a pillow’
Why can’t I stop singing that line.
Damn you, now it is in my head.
Pardon me but I thought that the first paragraph said that more than half listen to a local radio station and 46% listen to a national station. By this reckoning the local radio secttor is beating the pants off the national celebrity sector! What follows then is a blow by blow account of ratings for our failing national ego celebs! Strange reporting of the facts but nothing new for the Irish media?
have your say