Radio

JNLR Radio Research Local Stations 2010-4

This is the place we can dole out a few Radio Oscars! The regional listenership is normally a fairly static affair, but this year it’s thrown up a few surprises – good ones as well. For this analysis, we decided to look both at their local reach in percentage terms and also in actual numbers. At a first look at numbers, they seem deceptive, just note that we are looking at different size populations in each franchise area. For example, the estimated universe for the Donegal North franchise is 98,000 of which Highland have a 67% reach or 65,000 sets of ears. On the other hand the Louth/Meath franchise has an estimated population of 233,000 and LMFM reaches 59,000 adults or 25% of the franchise. Firstly, it’s incumbent upon us to heap the annual praise on Highland Radio for maintaining its top slot at a reach of 67%. Moving at a rapid pace into second place is MidWest Radio, gaining a very impressive 14 points and 14,000 listeners to bring them up to second place with a 63% reach. The other serious gain was made by Ocean FM moving six places to joint third at 50%. The rest of the stations moved up or down by no more than two places so nothing really to report there.

JNLR Radio Research Dublin 2010-4

The last quarter of 2010 shows, like the first quarter, very little has changed to the capitals radio listening habits. They still, en masse, like Radio 1, they are still jettisoning 2FM in their droves and, if you’re not tuned into Radio 1, you have to be too young and are instead listening to FM104 [55% of FM104 listeners are aged between 15-24 compared to 13% in the case of Radio One]. FM104 is now firmly rooted into second place and is listened to by 21% (201,000) of the capital population but Radio 1 still manages a hefty 31% (298,000).   Spin finally knocked its “sibling” off #3 slot, moving to a 15% reach (140,000) in front of 98FM at 12% (114,000) down from 14%. Newstalk gained three points in the metropolis and leaped ahead of both Q102 and 98FM in the process. They also managed to steal a large portion of share.     Last year at the same point, Q102 looked as if they would get a better podium position when they were lying in #3 in terms of share in Dublin, but only marginally behind FM104. Although they managed to retain their third slot this year, their share has tumbled into single digits and their near rival FM104 has gained share even more share.   2FM continues to disappoint and is now #8 in the Capital. Importantly, it looks, certainly from the outside, that very little is happening to arrest that slide. However, sometimes it takes time to instigate change and in an organisation that has a somewhat institutional feel to it, it may take even longer.    

JNLR 2011-3 National Listenership

National Listenership of any radio stations fell to 82%. Still it’s a bad figure being just shy of three million people listening every day, but it's certainly going in the wrong direction. The rant on this part of the web is normally the spiralling decline of the newsprint business, surely this medium is not going in the same direction. The big talking point, again, is another decline in the listenership of 2FM. This survey see it dropping another 80,000 listners compared to the same period last year and down 153,000 over a two year period. The only reason that the combined RTE figure was in the black was because of the hard work of RTE1. It’s no secret that the problems at 2FM are, in part, due to the untimely demise of Gerry Ryan. This is better illustrated with the quarter hour segments for 2FM throughout the day. Compare it now (the twelve months up to September 2011) to two years ago (the twelve months up to September 2010). There really is little to add to that.   Looking at the figures outside 2FM can be summarised in ‘nothing really happened’ as the status quo was maintained. A marginal decrease in the Today FM numbers and a likewise margional increase in Newstalk. 

JNLR 2011-3 Dublin Listenership

Still dominating the capital is the National broadcaster RTE1 having pulled back 3% points on the same period last year. 2FM dipping into single digits in Dublin has to be worrying (again). Perhaps Montrose would allow the newly appointed Commercial Director, Willie O’Reilly, to look at 2FM for a week or two and come up with a plan. It strikes me that there is none currently and that the station is bouncing around from one bad survey to yet another. Maybe the time Willie spent at a truly commercial station might be a source of some inspiration for the ailing 2FM. They have gone from 13% (123,000) to 8% (81,000) in just two years - a 34% drop in listeners. 98FM and 2FM look as if they had to give way to Nova, who entered this period with 5% listenership in the capital. It’s a fairly spectacular entrance it has to be said and has to be applauded. The downside to this is that the station is prone to fairly gushing prints ads on the back of any of their ‘successes’ – but I suppose they have the bragging rights in this one. Newstalk gained a bit of ground it has otherwise lost in the previous comparable survey. They added 20,000 listeners with the time slot of lunch until five making all the improvements.

JNLR 2011-3 Local Listenership

Briefly the locals. Highland is still the highest listened to local station reaching 65% of its franchise area, but still dropped 4% points year on year. Bolting into second this year, from forth, is Mid-West with an impressive 8% points increase. Equally impressive is the rise of Ocean FM who gained 9%. Galway bay and LM FM see the biggest declines Local  2011

2FM Quarter Hour Segments 2011

Where have all the listeners gone? Well the graph below charts the day in quarter hour segments from 2009 to 2011. It really highlights the desertion of ears in the morning slot after the untimely demise of Gerry Ryan.

JNLR Q2 2011 Local Stations

The local stations have varying penetration ranging from Highlands 67% to East Coasts 23%. But still in top spot is Highland with a fairly commanding lead.  The only real movements were KCLR up 7 points and ocean up 6. On the other side of that coin TippFM was down 6 points and LMFM down 5.    Station

JNLR Q2 2011 Dublin Figures

Dublin market whilst very crowded, it’s actually fairly static. In the list below there has only been two one changes in the order: 2FM down and Newstalk up.   2FM lost about a quarter of its listeners in the capital and is now firmly rooted, like Wolves last year,  to the bottom of the table. Actually, things are so bad at the station (and no offence is intended here) that they are only 37,000 listeners away from Lyric FM. The original populist station is fast approached by the specialist Lyric. Big gains for both Newstalk and FM104. Q102 will have to wait for another quarter to overtake 98FM.  4FM doesn’t rate in Dublin and Phantom is still unable to keep listeners.      Radio

JNLR Q2 2011 National Figures

The latest JNLR figures hold no real surprise in some quarters. Radio listenership, whilst still particularly healthy with a 85% penetration, has dropped back a little on last year’s comparable figures.   Radio 2011

JNLR 2010 July 09 to June 10

In order to digest this you’d have to take this in two chunks. The first part we will deal with the ‘national stations’ and later we will deal with the ‘local stations’. As with most research/analysis – the numbers normally speak for themselves, as they do in this case. The comparison in this case is with the previous year – the exact twelve months – July to June in each year. I struggle to understand why the likes of the BCI and BAI, when issuing these results, will draw their comparisons to  a different survey period – but anyway, these are like with like.  RTE1 still dominates the airwaves (we’ll dig some stuff up later!) although it’s listenership dipped slightly over the past 12 months. It’s sibling, 2FM seems to be loosing traction year on year all round and its share of listening has this survey dipped into single digits. The same could be said for Today FM whose reach is now 14% and share at 9%. Newstalk and Lyric are fairly static.   In the three years the listened to ‘any national’ has dropped from 50% to 48% of the population – a drop of  69,000. Some abandoning radio altogether and some heading the local direction. In the regions outside the two major urban centres – it looks as if the local /regional stations are taking their share of listeners from the national franchises. In Dublin RTE1 again is the dominant station and gaining slightly year in year. While the two doyens of Dublin Radio – 98 (with the name change) and FM104 slug it out near the top there is a real battle for supremacy...

JNLR April 2010 to March 2011 Local Stations

Looking at the local stations and the king pin is still Highland Radio, but it has fallen back year on year. Some of the station had a free run for years competing only against the National broadcaster. However most of the multi city stations have built up a significant listenership over the past few years. In the main most, of the local stations have fallen on the back of strengthening figures from the multi city franchises and you can see below. The biggest single fallers were Tipp FM, Midlands 103FM, Limerick Live and LM FM. The only stations to put on some fat were K FM and Mid West Radio.   Station

JNLR April 2010 to March 2011 Dublin Radio Stations

In the Capital, the radio waves are pretty crowded with twelve stations, not including any spill-over or community based stations. Radio reaches 85% of the capitals citizens or 837,000 people every day (average listened yesterday). The National Broadcaster dominates, reaching 38% of the population in some form or another. RTE1 reaches 30% (292,000) of the market, up 1% on the previous twelve months. Like its showing in the national market, 2FM struggled in the City as well, dropping to a 10% reach and, in comparison to previous books a paltry 92,000 listeners every day. Two years ago, in the 2009 report, 2FM reached 18% of the capitals’ population or 180,000 listeners.

JNLR April 2010 to March 2011 National Stations

Radio seems in a healthy state. It manages to captivate 85% of the population on an average weekday. That’s just over the 3m mark and only loosing 40,000 pairs of ears over the twelve month period to April 2010 to March 2011. But the results from the JNLR show that, for yet another quarter, 2FM have lost listeners in their droves. Over the year they have managed to rid themselves of nearly 100,000 listeners dropping from 521,000 to 428,000 and falling from a reach of 15% to 12%.

JNLR (Joint National Listenership Research) 2010 National Stations

The JNLR figures thump in the desks today and, on the surface it would seem that there is a small shift away from radio. National -...

JNLR (Joint National Listenership Research) 2010 Local Radio

In terms of the overall health of the listening market within the local franchises, that figure varies considerably across the counties. In the OceanFM franchise – Donegal South/Sligo/Nth Leit – the listened to any radio yesterday figure is 95% whereas in the East Coast FM area, Wicklow, that figure plummets to 79%. Many a thesis could be forwarded as to the difference in the listening base – but none to be found here. Of the 16 local stations, eleven saw a fall in their numbers. Tipp FM, Ocean FM, Midlands 103 all saw a 5% decline in numbers. Radio Kerry and KFM were the only real winners gaining 4% and 3% respectively. Maintaining its massive reach is still Highland Radio in Donegal. But the ‘best in show’ this year goes to Radio Kerry who moved from #7 in the Local Radio League in 2009 to #2. I’d say the shareholders are delighted.

JNLR (Joint National Listenership Research) 2010 Cork Stations

Cork's story is that it saw some of the biggest swings in the major franchises. The listened to yesterday for Cork was 81% down from 85% the previous 12 months (21,000 listeners). 2Fm, again, lost out as did 96FM which dropped a fairly substantial 4% points. The C103  gain in share helped the combined figure not look as stark a drop as it could have been. Having said that it’s still the station in Cork reaching 35% of the franchise on a daily basis followed by Radio 1 at 26%,  9% points ahead.

JNLR (Joint National Listenership Research) 2010 Dublin Stations

Turning the attentions to the Dublin area, the runners and riders are listed below, as is there form to date. Dublin - Yesterday 2010

JNLR September 2010 Irish National Radio

The JNLR for the period October 2009 to September 2010 has been released. Before we delve into the figures, these two facts should be considered. In many cases (even the official B.A.I. press release) comparisons are generally made between figures 12 months to the third quarter 2010 and the 12 months to the second quarter 2009. However, we advocate the much vaunted theory of “apples and oranges” and the fact that then cont be counted together. Therefore we analyse the figures 12 months to September 2010, strangely, to the comparable 12 month figures to September 2009, but that’s probably just the anal retention kicking in. Secondly, the radio business is very fluid and chairs are filled and swapped very rapidly. The untimely demise of G. Ryan threw the whole 2FM/RTE1 morning schedule up in the air in the past twelve months. Tubirdy moved to fill that void, J Creadon moved to fill the Radio 1 spot. Jim Jim left, Colm Hayes fills a spot 11:00 to 1:00 etc. And its not only in the national broadcaster that changes are made. For example, the Newstalk morning slot was amended with I. Yates giving T. Dunne and extra hour in bed. So radio now is a completely different canvas a seen in 2009 and it should be in the back of the mind.       

JNLR September 2010 – Dublin Radio Stations

Evening loosing 2% points in Dublin, RTE 1 is still the dominant player in the market and by nearly 100,000 pairs of ears. FM104 is its nearest rival in the capital at a reach of 189,000 people followed by Spin at 140,000 how have vaulted a place to second over the past 12 months. But lurking in the background and doing very steady work is Q102. Currently in 5th position they have been grabbing listeners survey after survey. In the survey in 2007 the same station had a mere 96,000 listeners ‘yesterday’ – it’s not too shabby.          2FM and Newstalk lost over 20,000 each in the 12 months in the Capital, Today FM lost 14,000 and 4FM hit the airways with 22,000. Phanthom has its problems on and off the pitch and in this survey they dropped to 22,000 listeners. 

JNLR September 2010 – Regional Stations

Turning our attention to the regional stations, some have had a better 12 months than others. Still the outright leader in this league table is Highland with a fairly formidable 69% reach. The three stations bordering capital are at the bottom of the table and it would be simply down to competition in the Greater Dublin area. Not only have the surrounding counties franchises have to contend with the competition from the nationals – but also from the six Dublin Franchises overspill. Tipp FM, Shannonside and LM FM all took a bit of a dip over the 12 months. Tipp FM doesn’t have a clear shot at its population. Its ahs the overlap of Beat 102-103 and Spin South West. Again,that extra bit of competition does seem to completely dilute the Home Local listenership. The introduction of i105 this time around definitely had an impact on Tipp FM’s listenership. On the other hand Radio Kerry have made a big leap and added 7,000 listeners.