MEDIA & MARKETING:Figures show people are deserting 2FM and Today FM for Radio 1 and local stations

AUDIENCE RESEARCH for radio stations may be published every few months but it takes a year or two for clear trends to emerge. One trend of note in recent times is that RTÉ’s 2FM is finding the market very competitive and the dwindling audience is now affecting the station’s bottom line.

An analysis of the Joint National Listenership Research survey for the 12 months to June 2011 by media buyer Mediaworks shows that 2FM’s average quarter hour audience declined by 22 per cent year-on-year.

Much of that decline is down to the fact that 2FM’s audience in previous years was inflated by the huge audience the late Gerry Ryan attracted for his mid- morning chat show. However the Mediaworks analysis shows there is ongoing audience slippage across 2FM’s schedule.

The station has suffered most in Dublin over the years, losing listeners in the capital year on year for every survey since June 2007. In the last five years, 2FM’s prime time adult quarter-hour listenership has fallen from 116,000 to 70,000.

The problem for any media property is that the smaller the audience, the less money advertisers are prepared to pay for advertising slots. 2FM’s commercial revenue in 2010 was €11 million, down from €14.5 million in 2009 and well below the €20 million received in 2008.

As 2FM does not receive a licence fee subsidy, the trading result last year was a loss €3.2 million. With no sign of the audience growing this year, that trading loss will likely widen through 2011.

Paul Moran, managing director of Mediaworks, says: “I can only speak for our agency whose clients include KBC, McDonald’s, Quinn Insurance and Sony. We have diverted our ad spend away from 2FM and into stations that are growing. Our spend on 2FM is shrinking yet our overall radio investment is growing.”

Moran adds: “The 2FM team will be very disappointed to see Ryan Tubridy’s peak morning slot drop 31 per cent of adult listeners over the past year. The only silver lining for 2FM is that it has recorded recent growth among 25- to 44-year-olds, which is its new area of focus.

However, for RTÉ radio overall, the picture is not so gloomy. Another clear trend is that Radio 1 has been picking up the listeners that 2FM has been losing.

Four years ago, the weekday average listenership to Radio 1 was 182,000. That has now increased to 223,000 and the station broadcasts eight of the top 10 performing radio programmes each week.

The trend away from national pop radio to national or local talk radio is reinforced by the audience figures for Today FM. In the latest JNLR book, Today FM’s average quarter hour audience is down 9 per cent year on year, with Ian Dempsey down 18 per cent, Ray D’Arcy down 10 per cent and Ray Foley down 8 per cent.

Ruth Ní Fhloinn of media buyer MEC says: “This listenership survey has shown a vast decline in national music radio. 2FM has been declining for some time but now Today FM has joined ranks. 2FM has tried and failed to transform its schedule. It’s time for Today FM to have a look at theirs.”

There are many ways of slicing and dicing the JNLR figures and sometimes the experts come to very different conclusions. On her reading of the JNLR audience estimates, Ní Fhloinn says the positive story nationally has been Newstalk’s continuing growth.

“Newstalk will be incredibly pleased with this book as it gained an additional 40,000 listeners for its breakfast show,” she says.

Over at Mediaworks, Moran is less chipper. “Newstalk has largely remained static, which will be a disappointment as they continue to operate off a modest-sized listener base and should be growing.”

The reason for these differing conclusions is that MEC’s analysis is based on the overall audience reach for the entire duration of a particular programme.

Moran prefers the average quarter-hour analysis method, as he says this gives a more accurate estimate of how many people will actually hear a commercial he books on a show.

Both experts concur that local radio is performing strongly, with local stations now commanding more than 55 per cent share of total radio listenership. Using the average quarter-hour measure, Moran notes that iRadio 105-107, Clare FM, Ocean, FM 104, South East Radio and MWR FM have all enjoyed year-on-year audience gains in excess of 20 per cent.

Audience falls of the same magnitude were measured at Sunshine 106.8, Phantom, 4FM and 98FM.