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KEY SHOWS ACROSS RTE 2FM have lost listeners over the past three months, but the station nevertheless said it had “done extremely well to stabilise the 15 to 34 audience”.
The latest Joint National Listenership Research (JNLR) figures show a decrease across most of the station’s output.
The JNLR details listenership for radio shows across Ireland, as well as market share.
The 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 figures cover the third quarter of this year, from July to the end of September.
When compared to the second quarter of the year, 2FM Breakfast is down 7,000 listeners to 142,000.
It’s a similar outlook for Laura Fox, whose show lost 8,000 listeners to an audience of 133,000 for her 9am-12pm show.
Tracy Clifford is down 9,000 listeners to 119,000, 2FM Drive is down 12,000 to 145,000 when compared to Q2 of this year.
It’s good news for Weekend Mornings on 2FM, which has added 17,000 listeners to its Saturday show to hit 153,000 and is up 9,000 on its Sunday show to reach an audience of 137,000.
And it’s a mixed bag for Roz Purcell and Emma Power’s show, which is down 5,000 to 128,000 listeners for its Saturday edition, but up 11,000 for its Sunday show to 109,000.
Dan Healy, the head of RTÉ 2FM, said the team, both on and off air, “have done extremely well to stabilise the 15 to 34 audience Monday to Friday and to keep weekend programming strong”
During the summer, RTÉ sought expressions of interest to create a “long list” of presenters on 2FM following the departure of a number of high-profile presenters from the station.
Healy said the station “received hundreds of applications, many of whom have been piloting shows”.
“We have been working hard on the new schedule and over the next while we will be unveiling our line-up full of gifted radio presenters who we are confident will meet the needs of young audiences in Ireland,” said Healy.
Over on RTÉ Radio 1, it remains the only radio station with a weekly reach of over 1 million and has 891,000 listeners on a weekday, though the weekday figure is down 13,000 when compared to Q2.
Morning Ireland remains the nation’s most listened to radio programme, with 465,000 listeners but this is also a sizeable drop on Q2’s audience of 486,000.
Oliver Callan has added 2,000 listeners to his show to have an audience of 338,000 while Today With Claire Byrne is down slightly to 342,000, a drop of 2,000.
It’s a bit of a mixed bag for Brendan O’Connor, whose Saturday show has gained 2,000 listeners to hit 342,000, though his Sunday edition has lost 7,000 to leave an audience of 339,000.
News at One is up 7,000 to 302,000 listeners, Drivetime is down 3,000 to 221,000, and Liveline with Joe Duffy is up 5,000 to an audience of 307,000.
Peter Woods, the head of RTÉ Radio 1, said it is “particularly heartening for Oliver Callan, who is less than 12 months in that slot”.
Over on Today FM, the station has 973,000 listeners tuning in each week, down 15,000 from Q2.
Its daily reach is also down 6,000 to 483,000.
The Ian Dempsey Breakfast Show is down by 1,000 listeners to an audience of 209,000, Dave Moore has taken a sizable hit, losing 15,000 listeners to 209,000.
Ray Foley however is up 14,000 to an audience of 169,000, while The Last Word with Matt Cooper is down 4,000 to 167,000.
And on Newstalk, Pat Kenny takes the title of most listened to show on commercial radio, with 241,000 daily listeners, though this is down slightly from the audience of 244,000 in Q2.
Newstalk has a weekly reach of 861,000, down 8,000.
Newstalk Breakfast with Ciara Kelly and Shane Coleman has retained its audience of 168,000 while Andrea Gilligan’s Lunchtime Live is down 3,000 to 134,000.
The Hard Shoulder with Kieran Cuddihy is down 3,000 listeners to 152,000 but Off The Ball has gained 8,000 to reach an audience of 53,000.
Mark Simpson, deputy managing editor of Newstalk, noted a “significant rise in the listenership” for Off The Ball and added that he is “delighted” that Pat Kenny remains the most listened to commercial radio show.
Meanwhile, the Independent Broadcasters of Ireland has welcomed the figures and noted that the independent radio sector has over 70% combined market share.
Michael Kelly, chief executive of the Independent Broadcasters of Ireland, said independent radio stations are “delighted with the results”.
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Should be shut down. Not needed.
@Ger Byrne: The worst station on the radio.
@John Fagan: Has been for decades too. Mad it lasted that long.
There’s a reason for this drop in listenership. It’s utterly terrible, and RTÉ’s image is permanently destroyed for those not residing in leafy South Dublin.
For anyone, whether in Ireland or elsewhere who finds the US election result shocking, they should reconsider where they get their information.
This trend was obvious on twitter X for months, but almost all the legacy mainstream media RTE included pushed a completely false reality. They lied.
@Tee: indeed. ‘Opinion polls’. All they are is bs concocted to lean voters a certain way.
@Tee: Reputable polls in the US had the race very tight. ‘Legacy mainstream media’ shows your agenda: I suspect that basically you’re a fan of mis/disinformation.
@Brendan O’Brien: He’s a fan of showing up failures such as yourself.
@Marvin Dollery: See, this is what I’m talking about.
@Brendan O’Brien: polls aside, legacy main-stream media needs to have a balanced non biased approached when reporting the news. All of the Irish main stream media displayed a complete biased agenda, they do so with many important topics and not just the US election. They also misinform and omit important facts to suit their narrative. The public is becoming very wide to it. People are sick and tired of a continuous misleading narrative. We want a good balanced approach to journalism!
@Brendan O’Brien: The results weren’t tight, what are you talking about, Dolt.
@Brian Hunt: As I said, polls showed the race as being very tight. The result (50.9% v. 47.6%) confirmed this.
@Tee: I don’t know what an unbiased approach to Trump would look like. Simply reporting what he says shows him in a bad light, as he says such shocking things: the kind of things that no other presidential candidate would have dreamed of saying. And he basically lies every time he opens his mouth. That’s not the fault of the ‘mainstream media’.
@Brendan O’Brien: You’ll need to refer to him as Mr. President Donald Trump in future. He’s going to influencing politics over here real soon.
@Marvin Dollery: *be
@Brian Hunt: the result was within the stated margin of error
@Kevin Kerr: 4,000,000 more people so far voted for President Donald Trump than they did for failure Harris. That’s virtually the population of Ireland (although it’s being overran each week with doctors, nurses and scientists from dangerous regions of the world).
@Brendan O’Brien: I found the Irish media quite biased against Trump.
@Aidan McKeon: lol, ‘quite biased’ — if Irish media was to be your ‘go to’ source of information leading up to the US election……. they DID make it v easy…..’ orange man bad’ —- V—– ‘Biden,,, NO Kamila is the messiah ‘. But the lies & misinformation ended up like the vile 3 year witch hunt against an innocent man of peace &;backfired spectacularly
Haven’t listened to it properly since the early 2000′s. It’s utter tripe now. Scrap it
@David Bergin: maybe that’s because you are no longer part of their target demographic
@Kevin Kerr: Gullible rich kids such as yourself? They can have that demographic!
@Marvin Dollery: I’m neither gullible, rich, nor a kid. You though Merv are gullible, probably poor, and definitely a kid
@Kevin Kerr: You carry on like a kid and your comments are like those of a childs. Plus, you always throw your toys out of the pram when anyone with intelligence challenges your warped little mind.
@Marvin Dollery: You made an awful eejit of yourself by misunderstanding my ‘timber computer’ comment, even after several people explained it to you.
That and your failure to support your ‘Trump is on Ireland’s side’ claim are your funniest moments so far.
@Brendan O’Brien: Says the troglodite posting comments from his timber and soy-based smartphone. You were exposed and then made a complete clown of in front of your “peers”. Accept the loss and go away. You are of no interest to anyone.
Kenny’ ms show on Newstalk is very informative.
He’s excellent at current affairs etc.
Unfortunately they’ll throw taxpayers money at it rather than let it fail , there’s much better variety of similar content out there than 2fm for that age cohort.
If RTE announced that today was Thursday, I’d check it on a calendar before I’d believe it!
Now Kevin, there’s an axe you can wield at 2fm and replace it with RTE Gold.
@Tommy: Read my mind .
Lorries Ryan is the answer!!!! That amount of talent, insight & personality…… as a nation we’re lucky to have such a superstar
@Frank Mc Carthy: I can picture the brainstorming in Montrose – shows we can create : ‘A Lotta Lottie’, ‘Lottie at Large’, a finance program ‘Lots More for Your Money’, music ‘Mix-a-Lot’….
That’s the listenership issue sorted! Now off to the canteen to find some guests.
If Newstalk got rid of that blatant money racket Cash Call then I’d tune in again. I think it’s a horrible way to raise revenue.
I would like to see a breakdown of the costs and hence profitability of 2FM but of course RTE won’t do that, citing commercial reasons, which is absolute garbage. If you follow a football match (or any live sporting event) on the BBC website, you will see how many people are watching that page at any time. RTE would never do that, again using commercial sensitivities as an excuse. They’re probably too scared to let people see how few people view some of their pages!
Going slightly off topic, I think it’s disgraceful and quite shocking that Newstalk have this money jackpot thing they run. This is blatant gambling, I know commercial stations need to generate income but they shouldn’t be allowed do the likes of this. Gambling is a massive issue, this is only adding to the problem.
Do many 15-34 year olds listen to the radio?
Bring back the Roadcaster…that’ll fix it.
@Tony Skillington: I think it is still parked outback in Montrose. I saw it on the Stillorgan Dual Carriageway heading towards RTE a year or so ago.
Why would anyone listen to someone else selecting what music they should listen to when there are endless streaming services where one can make a personal choice selection.
And more weirdly why would one pay for such a daft system. Or more weirdly why would taxpayers pay for something they are unlikely to use.
Rescheduling RTE2 is akin to flogging a dead horse!
Podcasts all day. Guardian football weekly then a bit of WW2 with James Holland and Al Murray, then a mix of maybe travel or a murder mystery and bang its time to log out.
Jnlr who are they they must be asking the same pool of unknown people coz nobody seems to know who they bloody are nobody knows of anyone whose been poled its all a make up racket from what i can make out
Wahey! Close it down.
Ireland s national embarrassment Joe scruffy thought kyle Hayes wa0s a footballer
They need bam bam and street boy, proper presenters.
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