Fall in listeners for leading RTÉ presenters

Leading RTÉ broadcasters have suffered sharp falls in audience as the State broadcaster loses further ground to local radio in the latest listenership statistics.

Between them, Gerry Ryan, Marian Finucane, Pat Kenny and Joe Duffy have shed tens of thousands of listeners, according to the Joint National Listenership Research (JNLR) survey, to be published today.

There is good news for two of RTÉ One's flagship news programmes, Morning Ireland and the News at One, which have recorded increases in listenership. Five Seven Live, in contrast, lost almost 20,000 listeners.

Today FM expanded its share of the national audience, from 9 per cent to 11 per cent, while Matt Cooper, the presenter of the station's drivetime programme, saw his listenership grow by 17,000.

The station's chief executive, Willie O'Reilly, welcomed the increase in Cooper's audience, the largest since he took over the slot from Eamon Dunphy.

He said: "Matt is a young journalist with a great future in front of him. This shows he has made the transition from print journalism to radio successfully."

In Dublin, Dunphy, now with Newstalk 106, also gained listeners; his breakfast programme is now heard by 24,000 listeners daily, up from 13,000.

Newstalk's share of listeners in the capital grew from 4 per cent to 6 per cent, and drivetime presenter George Hook also increased his audience from 21,000 to 26,000.

Sources at Newstalk said they were delighted at the station's figures, and described them as the ideal springboard for a national talk-radio licence.

RTÉ last night sought comfort in the fact that it still broadcasts the 10 most listened-to programmes, and 18 out of the top 20 programmes. A spokeswoman also expressed delight at big increases in listenership for some weekend programmes: the wildlife programme Mooney Goes Wild added 43,000 listeners; and Saturday View grew by 23,000.

Nationally, the audience share held by all RTÉ stations fell by 2 per cent, to 41 per cent. Local radio's overall share remained unchanged at 48 per cent.

The Broadcasting Commission of Ireland distributed the JNLR figures to radio stations yesterday, but for the first time imposed an embargo on their publication until today. However, The Irish Times has obtained the figures from industry sources. RTÉ last night said it regretted that other stations had broken the embargo.

These figures cover the period from July 2004 to June 2005, when Marian Finucane's weekday show was still running on RTÉ Radio 1 and Ryan Tubridy was working for 2FM.

Finucane, who begins a new weekend show shortly, saw her audience tumble from 372,000 to 355,000 in the previous 12-month period. However, her replacement, Ryan Tubridy, also lost listeners on 2FM, where his audience dropped from 244,000 to 217,000.

The biggest loser in this set of figures is Gerry Ryan, who dropped 40,000 listeners to 352,000. An RTÉ spokeswoman said Ryan's show was the third most popular in the country and that he was competing against 30 other broadcasters.

The most popular radio show remains Morning Ireland, with 487,000 listeners, up 15,000.

Pat Kenny's 303,000 listeners represents a drop of 9,000, while the News at One added 3,000 listeners, to 326,000.