From Monday, Cuddihy will leave Newstalk to take up Liveline hosting duties on RTÉ Radio 1 RTE RTE

THE LATEST JNLR listenership figures have shown that over 10,000 listeners apiece have been tuning out from big radio shows including Liveline, The Pat Kenny Show and Kieran Cuddihy’s The Hard Shoulder.

From Monday, Cuddihy will leave Newstalk to take up Liveline hosting duties on RTÉ Radio 1 – next week will see a new weekday schedule across Radio 1.

But ahead of that move, it’s been revealed that Cuddihy’s The Hard Shoulder lost 14,000 listeners in the 12 months to September, when compared to the last figures covering the 12 months to July.

Newstalk said it would soon announce a new presenter for The Hard Shoulder as well as a “fresh take on this show for 2026”.

The JNLR survey is conducted among an annual sample of around 16,800 people aged 15 and over.

It uses the “one-day-aided” recall methodology, whereby the respondent recalls all their listening activity for the day prior. 

The latest survey also shows Cuddihy stepping into the Liveline hotseat amid a slide in listeners.

In the 12 months to March, Liveline had an audience of 307,000, but by the time Joe Duffy signed off from the show, his audience had dropped to 299,000 listeners.

In the most recent survey in the 12 months to September, this slide has continued and Liveline now has a listenership of 279,000.

Elsewhere on RTÉ Radio 1, Morning Ireland remains the most-listened-to radio programme with 471,000 listeners, up 2,000.

Oliver Callan has seen a drop off though, from 354,000 last time out to 347,000 in the latest survey.

Claire Byrne meanwhile signed off with the same number of listeners, 354,000, while Brendan O’Connor continues to make gains.

File image of Claire Byrne RTÉ RTÉ

The audience for his Saturday show is up 7,000 to 419,000 while his Sunday audience is up 16,000 to 427,000.

Over on RTÉ 2FM, the Breakfast Show continues to lose listeners and is down 8,000 listeners to 131,000, while Drive with Doireann Garrihy is down 1,000 to 124,000.

Over on Newstalk, the Pat Kenny Show has lost 20,000 listeners, down to 196,000.

Newstalk's Pat Kenny

It was recently announced that his show will move to the weekends as part of a new 2026 Newstalk schedule.

After reaching a record audience of 158,000 for Off The Ball’s weekend offerings, it is down 8,000 to 150,000 in the latest survey.

The Anton Savage Show on Saturday’s meanwhile is up 7,000 to an audience of 146,000 while his Sunday show attracted 129,000 listeners.

Over on Today FM, Matt Cooper has made gains.

Today FM Presenter Matt Cooper grows his national audience to 183,000 listeners

The Last Word was up 17,000 listeners in June, and is now up a further 3,000 in the year to September for a listenership of 184,000.

Dave Moore has also increased his audience by 6,000 to 204,000 listeners while the station saw its daily reach pass the half million mark to 503,000.

The latest JNLR results meanwhile show that 3.48 million people now listen to radio every weekday, down from 3.83 million last time out.

This figure stood at close to 4 million in the first quarter of the year.