Radio figures show boost for 'Morning Ireland'

THE LATEST radio listenership figures show a boost in the audience for RTÉ Radio's flagship show Morning Irelandbut some other presenters saw their audiences dip.

RTÉ Radio produced 19 of the 20 most listened to programmes in the JNLR/Ipsos MRBI survey, which covers the period January 2010 – December 2010 and compares it to the October 2009 – September 2010 period.

The latest figures cover the period when the extent of the banking crisis became evident late last year and it appears that current affairs shows benefited from the bad news.

Morning Irelandgained 23,000 listeners, while Pat Kenny's current affairs show gained 4,000 listeners. Mary Wilson's Drivetimegained 5,000 listeners and Seán O'Rourke picked up another 2,000 listeners for News at One.

However, other RTÉ shows such as Liveline, Playbackand Miriam Meetslost listeners in this survey.

RTÉ Radio 1’s John Murray made his debut in the top 10 with his new show and will be relieved to see that his slot gained 2,000 listeners. He replaced Ryan Tubridy in the 9am-10am slot in September.

The slot had shed 21,000 listeners in the previous survey.

Ryan Tubridy began presenting his new show on RTÉ’s 2FM in September but it is difficult to compare his listenership figures with those of the late Gerry Ryan, as Tubridy’s show is an hour shorter than Ryan’s.

The three-hour show had 262,000 listeners in the last survey and the latest survey, which includes both time slots, showed a listenership of 216,000.

RTÉ 2FM head John McMahon said the reduction in the time slots from three to two hours was always going to impact on figures. “Our aim was to hold stable, and this we have done,” he said.

Breakfast with Hectorhad got off to "a strong start", he said, with 133,000 listeners but, again, the slot was shortened by one hour.

“The next two JNLR books will offer conclusive indications for 2FM and we’re determined to attract more listeners to what is a brilliant new schedule.”

Clare Duignan, managing director of RTÉ Radio, said there had been “some slippage” recently on RTÉ Radio 1 but those slippages had been reversed.

“This tells me that RTÉ Radio delivered. Through the extreme weather events of late last year, and the even more extreme developments in the political and economic arena, RTÉ Radio 1 was the clear leader for up-to-the-minute news and analysis.”

Today FM highlighted its steady market share of 9.3 per cent and compared it with 2FM’s 8.2 per cent share. The 2FM market share fell by 0.5 per cent, while Newstalk’s share fell by 0.1 per cent.

RTÉ Radio 1 and RTÉ Lyric FM recorded slight increases in market share, at 22.7 per cent and 1.7 per cent respectively.

Today FM chief executive Willie O’Reilly said the independent station continued to be the second most listened to national station in the country.

Newstalk FM’s chief executive Frank Cronin said the station now reached 272,000 listeners nationally daily, an increase of 4,000 when compared with the same time last year.

Donegal station Highland Radio still had the biggest market share of the local stations, but saw its share fall by 1.1 per cent to 62.3 per cent.

The other stations with the largest market share were Radio Kerry, Tipp FM, Shannonside and Midwest Radio. In Dublin, 98FM increased its market share to 11.6 per cent while FM104 saw a small reduction in its share, bringing it to 11.2 per cent. Q102’s market share was 11.1 per cent, down 0.1 per cent on the previous survey.

The multi-city service 4FM had a market share of 1.8 per cent.

Cork’s 96FM/C103 had a market share of 41.6 per cent – a drop of almost two per cent on the previous survey, while Cork’s Red FM market share was 10.6 per cent.

The survey results show that 85 per cent of the State’s adult population continue to listen daily to a mix of national, regional, multi-city and local radio.