Radio listenership has maintained a steady 83% reach over the last four surveys although there are some minor fluctuations in the underlying hard number. In the 2016Q2 survey it’s down 15,000 listeners to 2,992,000 on a year on year basis but up marginally (3,000) on the last book.
RTE1 is still the dominant player (which I mention every time and I can’t see that changing in some time). Their last quarter was disappointing dropping 15,000 on the last book to 876,000 but still managing a small comeback showing an increase of 13,000 on the year.
The next berth in the table is for the bragging rights of second place – but little else. Still 466,000 behind RTE1 is Today FM who are showing a poor year on year down 47,000 and falling 5,000 on the last book.
And 496,000 behind RTE1 and 30,000 behind TodayFM is Newstalk who did manage to narrow the gap with Today by 6,000. They showed a modest increase book on book of 1,000 but they are still down 21,000 on the year.
Further misery was piled on 2FM dropping 13,000 on the previous quarter and showing a 58,000 deficit on the previous year. I though, last time out, that 2FM might dip into a single digit reach this book and they didn’t – spared the hangman’s noose by a mere 4,000 listeners.
Lyric turned in a positive spin on 2016Q1 adding 1,000 and showing a 9,000 increase on the previous book – the only station showing an increase both on the year and book.
Newstalk have been in the news of late (as has the radio sector) with planned changes to their line-up to accommodate departures etc. It will make for interesting analysis as the numbers come to the fore and see of some of the changes are worth the coverage they got.
Indeed, if the new player in the radio market, Murdock, shakes up the radio market like he did the print market here some year’s back it will make for very interesting times.
Table: National Reach
| Year on Year | Book On Book | |||||||||||||
| Station | 2016Q2 | 2015Q2 | +/- | +/- | 2016Q1 | +/- | +/- | Ch | ||||||
| Any Radio | 83% | 2992 | 84% | 3007 | -1% | -15 | 0% | 83% | 2989 | 0% | 3 | 0% | ||
| Home Local Station | 42% | 1528 | 42% | 1521 | 0% | 7 | 0% | 42% | 1531 | 0% | -3 | 0% | ||
| RTE Radio 1 | 24% | 876 | 24% | 863 | 0% | 13 | 2% | 25% | 891 | -1% | -15 | -2% | ||
| Today FM | 11% | 410 | 13% | 457 | -2% | -47 | -10% | 12% | 415 | -1% | -5 | -1% | ||
| Newstalk | 11% | 380 | 11% | 401 | 0% | -21 | -5% | 10% | 379 | 1% | 1 | 0% | ||
| RTE 2FM | 10% | 344 | 11% | 402 | -1% | -58 | -14% | 10% | 357 | 0% | -13 | -4% | ||
| RTE Lyric FM | 4% | 140 | 4% | 131 | 0% | 9 | 7% | 4% | 139 | 0% | 1 | 1% | ||
Graphic: National Reach
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The day-parts simply reflect the national picture and the dominance of RTE1.
Graphic: Day Parts
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Table: National Shares
| Year On Year | Book on Book | ||||
| Station | 16Q2 | 15Q2 | +/- | 16Q1 | +/- |
| Any Radio | 100.00% | 100.00% | 0.00% | 100.00% | 0.00% |
| Any National | 46.10% | 45.90% | 0.20% | 45.60% | 0.50% |
| RTE Radio 1 | 23.60% | 21.90% | 1.70% | 23.50% | 0.10% |
| RTE 2FM | 6.00% | 7.10% | -1.10% | 6.10% | -0.10% |
| RTE Lyric FM | 2.10% | 1.90% | 0.20% | 2.00% | 0.10% |
| Today FM | 7.70% | 7.90% | -0.20% | 7.50% | 0.20% |
| Newstalk | 6.30% | 6.60% | -0.30% | 6.20% | 0.10% |
RTE1 gain 1.7% on the year and a marginal increase on the last book. 2FM are down 1.1% on the year and .1% on the book.
The year on year figures are starker in terms of their declines than the book on book which is to be expected. Eight of the thirteen radio stations surveyed declined book on book with the biggest fallers being RTE1 (-9,000), 2FM (-7,000), Today FM (-6,000) and Spin (-5,000). 98FM had a good quarter adding 8,000 to their numbers.
