Research

JNLR Radio Local Listnership 2012-1

The Local listenership also suffered at the hands of the mathematicians when the national population estimates changes from 3,516,000 to 3,608,000.  Station

JNLR Radio Listnership Dublin 2012-1

Dublin radio listenership gained ever so slightly in the last 12 months rising by 19,000 people in the metropolis. But as a straight head count that's encouraging, but in percentage terms it looks very different. The survey this quarter was altered slightly to reflect the population changes in the capital and the "estimated universe" aka theoretical survey population moved from 967,000 to 1,028,000 – a gain of 61,000 people (the census shows an 89,000 growth in the capitals population) It basically moves the goalposts and will antagonise the copywriters who will spend today day "shining up (the other word)" for their stations adverts and press releases. So don't expect to see a percentage in any of those gushings – bar from Nova, naturally.

JNRS 2011

Nine fallers and four managed a gain in the latest JNRS released today. The Irish Independent and the Mirror share the stage (probably for the first time), but both for very different reasons. The Mirrors accolade was that it grew 11% in readership year on year and on the other hand the Irish Independent lost 11% or 62,000 readers and drops below the half a million mark. Also in the morning market, The Irish Times suffered a fall of nearly 9% to 310,000 readers per day. The Star dropped 12,000 and The Sun nearly managed to hang on to last year’s figure as did the Daily Mail. Then only title to see an increase in readership was the Examiner gaining 6,000. The big faller (in percentage terms) was the Sunday Business Post losing nearly to one fifth of its readers and falling 33,000 to 154,000. Strictly in numerical terms, the Sunday Independent lost the highest amount at 67,000. Contrary to its (recent anyway) circulation direction, the Sunday Times was down 32,000 readers year on year. The Sunday Mirror, again like the circulation numbers, most likely capitalised on the demise of the News of the World putting on 42,000 to 418,000. Just on that: in this survey last year the News of the World was recorded at reaching 15% of the population or 528,000 people every Sunday. So where have they all gone? Now, not all the Sunday papers are surveyed – but enough to make a reasoned judgement. The survey shows that, in the main, the old NoW readers have disappeared into the ether. Based on the circulation and readership figures available aft...

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

Multi-Channel Marketing

A bit of research fell into the email inbox this morning that’s worth airing. On the back of an earlier article about trying to maximise the impressions of a print ad it was interesting that this research looked at the channels used in the marketing mix and how those channels are tracked.  The research was conducted by SkyIQ , part of BSB Sky. Of the 12 channels used, the most predominantly used channel was online being employed by 76% of the marketers surveyed. In my own opinion that figure struck me as being on the low side. Given that the survey had canvassed One hundred senior marketing professionals working within large organisations in the UK  I thought that online/digital would have been used by the majority, if not certainly the vast majority of all the companies.   Some of the ‘traditional’ media were next in line with print being used by 71% of respondents, email by 66% and, greeted with a broad smile from An Post, direct mail came in at a healthy 61% usage. TV was last only employed as a marketing channel by 36% of the respondents along with mobile also on 36%.     You could get the impression that some channels were not employed for the sake of a “safer option”. Given that we have a 117% penetration of mobile phones in the Republic the figure of 36% usage in the marketing mix strikes me as particula...

Print Advertising Research

It’s a long time since I saw research like this (not that I’ve been actively searching). It’s all to do with how to improve the ROI on your print advertising by getting more eyeballs to your ads. In the world of digital that’s impressions and is very easily measured. The CTR is then used to calculate your RIO. All very simple if you have the technology to back this up – which web browsers are very adept at doing. However, the punter tanking a glance at a printed page – thats a minefield in terms of research. It’s almost impossible to link the cursory glance (or more) at an advert and a sale. So the best practice is to give your advert the best possible chance of being seen and read. The people over at market research agency Validators came up with some really interesting research on this. And, as all hope has not yet gone and there are people still advertising in print, I thought it would be interesting to summarise their findings.    Their research was based on eye tracking studies – literally following eye movements to see where it stops and focuses on more (and less). These types studies have been used for a good few years in the Directory business as the on page/in copy marketing is massively important. Anyway, they reported that the four biggest influencers to having your press ad gain more impact...