"Disappointed but not surprised" sums up the response of the advertising agencies, which now hold the key to the future of Radio Ireland. Not one of them was prepared to advise clients to buy advertising space on a station which can claim an average of only 21,000 listeners. At a time when RTE 1 and 2FM are fully booked, all the advertising industry could offer Radio Ireland yesterday was its continued goodwill.
The listenership figures mark a "crisis point" for the station, according to Ms Georgina Caraher, media director of Young's Advertising. She gave the station bosses one week to come up with "significant plans" for the future. "We're probably into a relaunch situation, under a new name", she said.
According to Mr Paul Moran, managing director of Media Works, Radio Ireland urgently needs to "revisit its station format". He added: "They're trying to be too many things to too many people. I wouldn't be surprised if they went down the route of a music-mix format."
Mr Moran said that the station should try again to buy in a "star" broadcaster, in spite of its failure to lure Gerry Ryan from 2FM.
"The programme structure needs to be freed up to allow them to create a brand image", said Mr Padraic Guilfoyle, managing director of Media Guilfoyle Communications.
So what went wrong? Just about everything, the agencies say. The start-up last St Patrick's Day was "atrocious", said Ms Caraher, with too much concentration on the station and not enough on Eamon Dunphy and the other personalities. In addition, Radio Ireland failed to build on its strengths, such as its sports programmes or the cult status of John Kelly's music programme.
Advertisers, who had adopted a wait-and-see approach to the new station, were congratulating themselves yesterday on their caution. But Mr Moran said that Radio Ireland was too expensive anyway. The average price of a 30-second spot on the station was about £136, compared to £179 for the same on 2FM, he pointed out. The JNLR figures give Radio Ireland a market share of 1 per cent, compared to 22 per cent for 2FM.
Mr Guilfoyle was doubtful whether there was room for a second national radio station. And, as Mr Moran pointed out, Radio Ireland faces far more competition, in the form of 21 well-established local stations, than did Century Radio, the last national commercial station.
