RTÉ Radio 1 remains most popular station

RTÉ Radio One was the main winner in the latest listenership figures released today with presenters such as Marian Finucane, Joe Duffy, Sean O'Rourke and Pat Kenny making particularly strong increases.

The State broadcaster retained its hold on the top ten most-listened to programmes in the survey period January-December 2008 and the gap has widened between its tenth most popular show and Today FM's highest-rating show. Some 15,000 listeners now separate Today FM's Ray D'Arcy Show from Conversations with Eamon Dunphy on RTÉ.

Ray D'Arcy, Ian Dempsey and The Last Word's Matt Cooper all lost listeners in this survey when compared with the October 2007 to September 2008 period but Today FM highlighted the fact that the independent station had finally achieved the same daily adult listenership as 2FM. The RTÉ station's "listened yesterday" figure fell one per cent to 16 per cent while Today FM retained its 16 per cent figure.

The RTÉ current affairs show Morning Irelandcontinues to be the most-listened to radio show in the State, with 437,000 listeners but Livelinenarrowed the gap once more. It now has 392,000 listeners, an increase of 14,000 on the previous survey. Marian Finucane gained the most listeners at the station with 16,000 more listeners for her Sunday morning show and 8,000 more for her Saturday programme.

After losing 9,000 listeners in the last survey, 2FM's Gerry Ryan gained 1,000 listeners this time around, moving him ahead of Ryan Tubridy's morning show. Tubridy's show was the only one in the top ten to lose listeners in the last survey period. His audience fell by 1,000 in the last three months of the year.

The battle for evening commuters continued but Drivetime with Mary Wilsonwidened the gap further in this survey by gaining 11,000 listeners while Today FM's The Last Wordlost 3,000 listeners. Some 36,000 listeners now separate the two shows which were neck-and-neck earlier last year.

Newstalk's evening show The Right Hook with George Hooklost 5,000 listeners when compared with the previous survey. The show now has 95,000 listeners.

Responding to the results, the Independent Broadcasters of Ireland criticised the "unfair competitive advantage enjoyed by RTÉ which can promote its radio stations liberally on TV - to evident success for Radio One".

Its chairman Willie O'Reilly said the independent radio sector had held up very well in retaining a loyal audience base and strong advertising revenues despite the recession. "The cosy family relationship between RTÉ Radio and its television stations meant that RTÉ Radio was not constrained in promotional spend last year, unlike the independent sector, which, like many other businesses faced restricted marketing budgets over the past 12 months."

FM104 remains the most-listened to local radio station in Dublin, with a listened-yesterday figure of 20 per cent, which is unchanged from last year.

Other than Spin 1038, which increased its reach to 15 per cent (+1), figures for the remaining Dublin stations remained the same. Dublin’s 98 reach was at 15 per cent, Q102 had 11 per cent, Phantom 105.2 was at 3 per cent and Country Mix 106.8FM had a reach of 3 per cent.

In Cork, the combined services of 96FM/C103 increased its reach to 50 per cent (+1), while its market share was 47.8 per cent (-0.8). Cork’s Red FM increased its reach and market share in the survey period to 19 per cent (+1) and 11.6 per cent (+0.3) respectively.

Among regional stations, Beat 102-103FM increased its weekday reach figure to 20 per cent (+1) and its market share figure to 11.4 per cent (+0.2). While Spin South West maintained its 16 per cent reach, its market share fell by one point to 8.8 per cent. Figures for the eleven months that i102-104FM has been on air show the station achieved a weekday reach figure of 11 per cent (+2) and market share of 5.9 per cent (+0.7).

The most popular local radio station in terms of local market share was Highland radio, followed by Mid West Radio and Limerick’s Live 95FM.

The research measures a station’s popularity both in terms of reach and market share.

Reach is defined as the number of people who listened to a station each day, no matter how long for, whereas a station’s market share refers to the number of minutes someone listened to it during the daytime.

According to the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland, which commissions the JNLR survey, market share is a better indication of loyalty to a particular station.