Day: 24 July 2013

The national picture shows how the individual stations have done in the twelve months. Across the board the national stations have all dropped in the comparable twelve months. The three taxpayer funded stations dropped 50,000 in total and now have a combined reach of 34%, down one point.

2FM is showing a 29,000 decrease year on year, but, to be fair, if you look at the quarterly charts below you’ll see that it’s a slight improvement book on book and all comparisons here are twelve months to twelve months – not book on book. In percentage terms Lyric took the biggest tumble back 17% or 23,000 listeners.  

Station	13_2		12_2		+/-	+/-
Any Radio	84%	3012	85%	3056	-1%	-44	-1%
Any National	45%	1619	47%	1699	-2%	-80	-5%
Any RTE Radio	34%	1229	35%	1273	-1%	-44	-3%
Any RTE1/2FM/Lyric	34%	1210	35%	1260	-1%	-50	-4%
RTE Radio 1	24%	864	25%	891	-1%	-27	-3%
RTE 2FM	11%	382	11%	411	0%	-29	-7%
RTE Lyric FM	3%	116	4%	139	-1%	-23	-17%
Today FM	13%	449	14%	501	-1%	-52	-10%
Newstalk	8%	288	8%	303	0%	-15	-5%
Any Region/Local/M-City	58%	2079	58%	2091	0%	-12	-1%
Home Local Station	43%	1548	44%	1603	-1%	-55	-3%
Other Regional/Local Station	7%	269	7%	246	0%	23	9%

 

Today FM was the big faller in the survey shedding 52,000 listeners (or 10%) and one percentage point compared to the previous twelve months. But again, in the quarterly trends it’s not as severe a drop (only) 19,000 book on book. Newstalk shows a 15,000 drop but maintain their 8% reach.   

The shares of the stations don’t yield anything significant bar the fact they are all down. But the trend for most stations is up or at least stable – bar Today FM. 

Station	13_2	12_2	+/-
Any Radio	100.0%	100.0%	0.0%
Any National	46.4%	47.6%	-1.2%
Any RTE Radio	32.8%	33.0%	-0.2%
Any RTE1/2FM/Lyric	32.2%	32.6%	-0.4%
RTE Radio 1	23.1%	23.0%	0.1%
RTE 2FM	7.4%	7.7%	-0.3%
RTE Lyric FM	1.7%	1.9%	-0.2%
Today FM	9.0%	9.9%	-0.9%
Newstalk	4.6%	4.6%	0.0%
Any Region/Local/M-City	53.6%	52.4%	1.2%
Home Local Station	40.0%	40.3%	-0.3%
Other Regional/Local Station	4.9%	4.0%	0.9%

 

In terms of the quarter hour slots it re-affirms the dominance RTE1 has over the day – literally from dawn till dusk. 

To get a better less cluttered view of the day. we’ll split up the day into parts (one overlapping). RTE certainly getting the better of the morning with Today trailing in second. 2FM only get a look at second when Ray D’Arcy gives up the mike. 

Lunchtime again News at One dominates that period and then Joe Duffy. 2FM keeps ahead of Today for a large part of the afternon. Into the evening Matt Cooper makes a small surge narrowly edging out George Hook. Newstalk start making inroads in the listnership share once George Hook kicks off.

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And the latter part of the day is won by Newstalk for a small period of time and then it’s back to RTE1. Numvers are very poor in the small hours as you would expect.

Total Dublin listenership dipped very marginally from 819,000 to 817,000 and this last figure represents 81% of the capital tuning into radio on a daily basis. The dominant station in the capital is RTE1 with a 28% reach down slightly from last year. Still making inroads into that figure is FM104 in second place at a 22% reach or 225,000 people.

From there is a bit of a gap to third with Spin 1038 at 131,000 having dropped 18% year on year. Lyric and Nova both suffered large falls in this survey losing 33% and 23% respectively. However, they are coming from a low base so their swings can be very pronounced. Spin stalemate, 98FM, more or less collapsed in the survey moving from 101,000 to 87,000 and 9%. It’s a 23% drop in listeners over the twelve months and it moves the station from the 5th largest station in Dublin to the 6th. Given that in the 10_2 survey it was the third largest station in the capital, it is an alarming drop. 

Station	13_2	13_22	12_2	12_22	13 v 12	13 v 12	13 v 12
RTE Radio 1	284	28%	295	29%	-11	-1%	-3.7%
FM 104	225	22%	213	21%	12	1%	5.6%
Spin 1038	131	13%	160	16%	-29	-3%	-18.1%
Newstalk	122	12%	124	12%	-2	0%	-1.6%
Q102	95	9%	108	11%	-13	-2%	-12.0%
98FM	87	9%	113	10%	-26	-1%	-23.0%
Today FM	76	7%	84	7%	-8	0%	-9.5%
RTE 2FM	66	7%	76	8%	-10	-1%	-13.2%
RTE Lyric FM	43	4%	64	5%	-21	-1%	-32.8%
Radio Nova 100FM	43	4%	56	6%	-13	-2%	-23.2%
Sunshine 106.8	29	3%	33	3%	-4	0%	-12.1%
Classic Hits 4FM	25	2%	23	2%	2	0%	8.7%
Phantom 105.2FM	17	2%	18	2%	-1	0%	-5.6%

 

But it’s really the quarterly trends that show the true long-term picture of any station. You can clearly see that while RTE1has dropped 11,000 survey to survey, it belies the truth somewhat given that they have been on an upward trajectory for the last few books. 

Dublin Market Shares

Dublin market shares show a similar picture to the reach story. The biggest share goes to RTE1 at 34% followed by FM104 at 14% after gaining 2% in the survey. 98FM was the biggest faller in share a close to 2% followed by Lyric and Spin. Graphically the chart below shows the clear lead RTE1 has in share terms in the capital.

Station	13_2	12_2	+/-
RTE Radio 1	33.60%	32.30%	1.30%
FM104	14.10%	12.20%	1.90%
Q102	8.60%	8.30%	0.30%
Newstalk	8.20%	7.50%	0.70%
Spin 1038	7.10%	7.70%	-0.6%
98FM	5.90%	7.70%	-1.8%
Today FM	5.70%	6.30%	-0.6%
RTE 2FM	5.20%	6.00%	-0.8%
Radio Nova 100FM	3.70%	3.10%	0.6%
Sunshine 106.8	2.50%	2.30%	0.2%
RTE Lyric FM	2.20%	3.40%	-1.2%
Classic Hits 4FM	1.90%	1.40%	0.5%
Phantom 105.2FM	0.90%	0.70%	0.2%
Other Region	0.30%	0.50%	-0.2%

 

And in order to see that going on underneath RTE you have to take them out of the picture to get a better look.

It shows FM104 losing a bit of traction this survey, but mainly confined to the last quarter. The opposing stories of two stations over the last few years: Newstalk making good headway in share terms since 2011_4 in the capital and 98FM going completely in the wrong direction since 2010_2.  

Dublin Quarter Hours

Briefly looking at the quarter hours, again the graph is dominated by RTE1 in the capital. Throughout the day the station dominates it rivals and having two and a half to three times the audience of FM104 in the early morning.

Removing RTE1 from the picture and splitting the stations lets us get a better picture of the quarter hour battles.

George is obviously a big draw in the capital pushing Newstalk into second spot in this crowded market for this time slot.

The latest JNLR release for the twelve months to June 2013 show that radio, in the main, is still in a very healthy position. It reaches over three million people every day which is equivalent to 84% of the population. This is down 1% or 44,000 on the same twelve months to June 2012.

The figure of “National Radio” stands at 45% reach or 1,619,000 adults but this is a fall of two points or 80,000 listeners in the last twelve months. Local regional stations still outshine the nationals reaching 58% of the population or just over two million listeners.  

Looking at radio reach across the day it shows that it’s dominated by a morning audience peaking at nearly 1.4m listeners and then trailing off after lunch and again, more significantly, after the evening commute.