THE radio listenership figures will be viewed with more interest than usual - they are the last to be published before Radio Ireland airs on St Patrick's Day.
The RTE stations' combined market share is down one percentage point, to 54 per cent, while the local stations' combined share is up one.
Despite claims and counterclaims from the industry, the figures remain pretty constant, with only small changes up and down.
The survey result is complex with the market survey company MRBI, using two measurements. "Audience reach" shows the numbers and percentage of the sample that tuned into any station for any length of time, even for two minutes or less. The "market share" divides up the number of minutes each station was listened to. It tends lo indicate station loyalty.
RTE must be disappointed with its audience reach figures when comparing the first six months of last year to the second half. The latter part of last year includes at least some of the period when it was operating its revamped schedule on Radio 1.
Between January and June last year Radio 1 was reaching 36 per cent of the audience on a daily basis. Between July and December it had dropped two percentage points to 34 per cent. 2FM increased its audience reach by two points to 30 per cent.
However, RTE argues that with listenership generally down for the July-August period the comparison is not valid.
But a comparison between July to December 1995 and the same period last year shows the audience was static at 34 per cent.
RTE chose to highlight its growth in the "housewives" market, important to both Pat Kenny and Gay Byrne, supposedly to give some indication that both men are doing well in their new time slots with new formulas.
Overall, local radio was reaching 53 per cent in the first half of the year, increasing one point for the second half of the year.
But RTE will be disappointed its listeners' age-profile has not improved significantly.
For the first six months of last year RTE had a daily listenership of 23 per cent of the high-spending 25-to 34-year-olds In the second half that dropped to 19 per cent.
Radio Ireland has made no secret of its need to attract large numbers of listeners between the ages of 25 and 45. It saw Radio 1 as being weak in that area.
Radio 1's new schedule, designed to be lighter, with more music, was to address that problem, but it has clearly failed to do so.
Comparing numbers listening to Radio 1 during particular time slots is not necessarily a useful exercise in that the figures are annual ones, with a six-month overlap.
However, while the numbers listening throughout the important morning period has changed little between the two periods - that is, June 1995 to July 1996 and January to December 1996 - it might have been expected that a radical change in schedule would have pushed up the figures, at least marginally, for the last three months of 1996.
But the figures show no change in audience level since the highly publicised changeover between Pat Kenny and Gay Byrne. The 9.15 a.m. to 11 am. slot is 18 per cent of the audience in both sets of figures and 12 per cent for the 11 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. slot.
The statistics are published by the market research company, MRBI for the Joint National Listenership Research, which is made up of the radio and advertising industry.