Radio stations and their star presenters are eager for some good news fromtomorrow's listenership figures, writes Emmet Oliver.
Everyone is a little tense in Irish radio this month. Advertising is scarce, listeners are becoming more choosy and now the latest set of listenership figures are about to land.
Tomorrow's JNLR figures will not break or make anybody's career, covering as they do the first three months of the year, but they will go some way to answering the questions everyone is asking in the radio business.
The figures for the second half of 2002 gave NewsTalk a "listened-to-yesterday" figure of 2 per cent. Its market share was even worse at 0 per cent. Jokes were made about Radio Zero per cent and there was trouble at board level as one company, Capital Radio Productions, refused to chip in any more cash.
Since then the station has spent thousands marketing its prime time presenters - David McWilliams, Damian Kiberd and George Hook. If ads at bus stops mean anything, the station's figures must rise from 2 per cent.
Standing still or dropping back would be a disaster which even the station's wealthiest backers like Denis O'Brien would find hard to accept.
The chief executive of the station, Mr Aidan Dunne, as a former boss of McConnell's Advertising Agency, knows how the advertisers will be thinking - the figures are not necessarily that important once the general pattern is upward.
Over at RTÉ, interest will centre around the usual suspects which rule the RTÉ Radio One schedule - Marian Finucane, Pat Kenny and Joe Duffy. The last set of figures delivered great news for Duffy, whose Liveline show passed out Today with Pat Kenny for the first time.
RTE Radio One, now being managed by Adrian Moynes, performed well in the last set of JNLR figures, although beneath the headline figures, the station is finding it hard to reach younger Dublin listeners. That is a market in which Today FM has managed to gain a serious foothold, with Ian Dempsey, Ray D'Arcy and the Last Word giving RTÉ some serious competition.
Radio people are wondering how journalist Matt Cooper has performed since stepping into Eamon Dunphy's shoes earlier this year. Today FM managing director Mr Willie O'Reilly has already prepared the ground by saying there might be some slippage, but the station will hope the programme's mixture of comedy and weighty interviews remains attractive.
Elsewhere the most ferocious competition is between the two Dublin pop stations FM 104 and 98 FM, controlled by Denis O'Brien. Each stations has been spending millions (literally in the case of 104) trying to edge the other out.The last set of figures provided some cheer for 98 FM, but FM 104 chief executive Mr Dermot Hanrahan (who is also a director of NewsTalk) will be hoping to see the trends reversed.