Day: 18 April 2013

Turning to the capital and it shows that 85% of its inhabitants or 863,000 people tune in to radio each day.

The biggest draw is RTE1 reaching 277,000 or 27% followed by FM104 with 220,000 which makes the gap 57,000 listeners ever day. 

It was a fairly static affair over the past twelve months with most staying loyal to their stations.

The biggest faller over the year was 98FM which dropped 12,000 listeners or 11% of it listenership. Spin lost 3% and Q102 dropped 8,000 or 8%.  

The Sunshine percentage drop looks fairly bad, but it’s coming from a very low base in the first place.

Station	13_1	13_12	12_1	12_12	+/- %	+/-
RTE Radio 1	277	27%	274	27%	0%	3	1%
FM 104	220	22%	222	22%	0%	-2	-1%
Spin 1038	142	14%	146	14%	0%	-4	-3%
Newstalk	120	12%	120	12%	0%	0	0%
Q102	98	10%	106	11%	-1%	-8	-8%
98FM	97	10%	109	10%	0%	-12	-11%
Today FM	77	8%	77	8%	0%	0	0%
RTE 2FM	65	6%	62	6%	0%	3	5%
Radio Nova 100FM	47	5%	44	4%	1%	3	7%
RTE Lyric FM	45	4%	45	4%	0%	0	0%
Sunshine 106.8	26	3%	30	3%	0%	-4	-13%
Classic Hits 4FM	25	2%	24	2%	0%	1	4%
Phantom 105.2FM	18	2%	16	2%	0%	2	13%

 

The reach graphs show gaps narrowing between FM104 and RTE1 in the Dublin, but also the gap developing between those two stations and the rest of the group.

On the other hand, nobody made any spectacular gains – Nova gained a percentage point bringing them back to 5% where they were a few surveys back. Same numbers again except expressed a percentage reach.

 Shares

The real fight in Dublin is for share and, for the fifth successive quarter, FM104 have managed to increase theirs. I produced two share graphs as it’s only fair to show the dominance of RTE1 in the capital. But then by removing RTE1 from the picture you can see the real scrap underneath. Maintaining share was an issue for Today FM and more so for 98FM dropping 2.3 points. 

Station	13_1	12_1	+/-
RTE Radio 1	32.90%	32.00%	0.90%
FM104	14.50%	11.40%	3.10%
Q102	8.70%	9.20%	-0.50%
98FM	6.40%	8.70%	-2.30%
Spin 1038	7.80%	6.80%	1.00%
Newstalk	7.80%	7.80%	0.00%
Today FM	5.90%	6.90%	-1.00%
RTE 2FM	4.70%	5.50%	-0.80%
RTE Lyric FM	2.50%	3.20%	-0.70%
Radio Nova 100FM	3.50%	3.30%	0.20%
Sunshine 106.8	2.10%	2.40%	-0.30%
Classic Hits 4FM	1.60%	1.20%	0.40%
Phantom 105.2FM	0.90%	0.80%	0.10%
Other Regional	0.30%	0.60%	-0.30%

 

Q102 would be FM104’s closest rival, but they are still nearly six percentage points adrift of FM104 in share. That being said, RTE1 are still eighteen percentage points ahead of FM104’s share in the capital.   

   

 Dublin by the hour

Finally a brief look at Dublin by the hour. Again it’s best to look again at the figures without the dominance of RTE1.

But on the graph where it is included, there is an interesting swapping of positions from the National picture. Nationally RTE1’s highest point, in a single quarter hour, is just before two-o-clock at the start of Joe Duffy. But interestingly in Dublin RTE1’s peak is during Morning Ireland and then tails off only to spike again during Joe Duffy. 

FM104 takes the day by the neck and keeps a hold of it! It’s not until after six that it’s beaten by any station. Spin makes some gains after lunch – when its listeners get out of bed no doubt and 98FM literally drifts at the same pace throughout the day. One wonders if moving Ray Foley into the morning slot was an attempt to try and grab some of the all important listeners at breakfast.

Newstalk’s high point in Dublin is during Breakfast, but George Hook certainly brings them back again for 4:30 and onward. Today competes well at breakfast, again during Ray Darcy and has a final surge during Matt Cooper. 

 

 

Now we can take a look at the individual stations by programme and through a comparison of their quarter hours segments to see how they stack up against each other. The programme blocks are as they are currently. So in a few cases, there would have been a change in scheduling over the year, so the programme listed is being compared to a different programme or DJ.

Also in a few places there may have been a shift in the time allocated to a programme block. Where these occur (and I can bring them to mind!) I’ll point it out.

You can cycle through the national stations by clicking through the buttons below so long as you have an up-to-date browser.  

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Looking that the national picture and how the individual stations have done, it shows that all of the stations in the survey have lost listeners in comparison to last year. The Donnybrook stable, which has the most to lose in the first place, have had the sharpest declines. RTE1 falling 34,000, 2FM dropped 30,000 listeners or 7% and Lyric, which was the worst performing station on the national stage, dropped 16,000 or 12%.

As an individual station, RTE1 still retains the top slot reaching 24% or 863,000 people every day, but you have to take notice that 44% or 1.5m people prefer to listen to their ‘home local’ stations during the day. I suppose it a bit like the Google mantra – it all about local.

Station	13_1		12_1		+/-	+/-
Any Radio	84%	3023	85%	3059	-1%	-36	-1%
Any National	45%	1631	47%	1683	-2%	-52	-3%
Any RTE Radio	34%	1221	35%	1268	-1%	-47	-4%
Any RTE1/2FM/Lyric	34%	1204	35%	1250	-1%	-46	-4%
RTE Radio 1	24%	863	25%	897	-1%	-34	-4%
RTE 2FM	11%	379	11%	409	0%	-30	-7%
RTE Lyric FM	3%	116	4%	132	-1%	-16	-12%
Today FM	13%	468	14%	489	-1%	-21	-4%
Newstalk	8%	287	8%	305	0%	-18	-6%
Any Region/Local/M-City	58%	2092	59%	2117	-1%	-25	-1%
Home Local Station	44%	1564	45%	1637	-1%	-73	-4%
Regional/Local Station	7%	266	7%	242	0%	24	10%

 

Nationally Today FM retains second slot at 13% or 468,000 listeners without very much competition for the place. It’s followed by 2FM at 11% or 379,000 people and then Newstalk at 8% or 287,000. In terms of trying to say something positive about 2FM, it has managed to slow, if not arrest, its recent listenership declines. Granted, on a full twelve month comparison it has dropped 30,000, but compared to its figure in the last quarter (to December 2012) it’s only down 3,000 listeners. 

The listenership shares manage to say relatively stable on a quarter by quarter comparison the only major fallers were Today FM and 2FM.

Station	13_1	12_1	+/-
Any Radio	100.0%	100.0%	0.0%
Any National	46.3%	47.6%	-1.3%
Any RTE Radio	32.4%	33.0%	-0.6%
Any RTE1/2FM/Lyric	31.8%	32.6%	-0.8%
RTE Radio 1	23.0%	23.0%	0.0%
RTE 2FM	7.2%	7.7%	-0.5%
RTE Lyric FM	1.7%	1.9%	-0.2%
Today FM	9.4%	9.9%	-0.5%
Newstalk	4.5%	4.6%	-0.1%
Any Region/Local/M-City	53.7%	52.4%	1.3%
Home Local Station	40.3%	40.3%	0.0%
Regional/Local Station	4.7%	4.0%	0.7%

 

I took the liberty (below) of looking at the national stations on an hour by hour basis, but having to split the graph into day parts to that it’s somewhat readable.

The most noticeable feature is the stranglehold RTE1 has over the majority of the day. Spiking firstly with Morning Ireland and then again with Joe Duffy.

I overlapped one hour in the second and last graphs so the both have figures for 18:00 – just to highlight the sudden drop in listenership after 6:00pm. RTE1, overall, would win that period of the day, but they are given a run from seven-o-clock with Newstalk’s ‘Off the Ball’.

Just on that: the figures in the survey are the average listenership for the twelve months up to and including March 2013. The ‘Off the Ball’ team resigned in early March and therefore their absence is only surveyed for the final three weeks of this 52 week survey. 

 

The latest JNLR survey, the twelve months to March 2013, show that radio listenership has slipped very slightly. It fell back by 36,000 listeners compared to the same twelve months to March in 2012. It’s a marginal decrease of 1% but still leaves radio’s reach at a healthy 84% of the population, the same percentage point as last year. (more…)