The listenership picture for radio has remained fairly static over the last few surveys with radio listenership remaining at 83%. In this survey this represents 2.9m people tuning in to one station or another every day. RTE1 dropped 24,000 listeners or 3% but is still listened to by 23% of the population daily (down 1% point) or 837,000 people. The national broadcaster is under pressure on a lot of fronts and as you go through the results here for 2014Q3 it becomes apparent. They dropped listeners nationally and in Dublin, some of their individual programmes had less than stellar performances

This year, like every year, the Top 30 is a mixed bag. Still the biggest draw in the radio landscape is Morning Ireland with a reach of 429,000 people every morning which is 12% of the population its down 19,000 on 2013Q3 or 4%.  This is followed by Liveline at 382,000 and its sees a fall of 31,000 or 8% on the year. Actually most of the top portion table have seen a decline in listeners over the year and most of them in turn are from the RTE stable. The table is below so there’s no need to goo

Looking at Dublin the listenership of any radio has increased marginally both over the twelve months and book on book. Listenership in the capital is static at an 80% reach, which is  equivalent to 815,000 listeners every day in the 2014Q3 survey. But underneath this metric lie some very interesting details. Below is a table of the current stations standings comparing them to the survey of 2013Q3. For the ‘book-on-book’ club I’ve also conjured up a table showing the last five surveys and how each station stood in that survey which is below that again This time around there’s no

Looking at the individual stations and their underlying output now. In looking at these just remember that they are year on year comparisons: 14Q2 V 13Q2. Then within the stations there may have been changes to the schedule in terms of personality or the program time slot. So on the surface some figures might look like there’s been a dramatic change (up or down) but you’d have to drill deeper to see what the underlying cause could be. *Denotes a change in programme for the previous year. [module-295] 

There always has to be a top something or other, so here’s the Irish Radio top thirty. Twenty two of the top thirty births are occupied by an RTE station. The big gains, in percentage terms, are for Pat Kenny, two breakfast shows and the two sports slots on RTE (see bottom of the page). Fallers were News at One and Liveline (one wonders was there a slight knock on effect there). Miriam Meets falls dips 9%, the Business falls 7% and Sean O’Rourke down 6%.  Programme Station Time 14Q2 13Q2 +/- 000 +/- % #14 #13 Morning Ireland RTE1

Turning to regional and local now: In terms of regional stations they face stiff and very localised competition from the home local stations in their respective franchises. Add to this the competition from the national broadcasters and you really have your work cut out for you. But, in the main, each of the Regional Stations is tracking in the right direction. Beat 102 in the Southwest franchise still manages to keep RTE1 at bay and is making gains on the Home Local stations. Its impossible to make or try and draw comparisons as each franchise dynamic is completely different. For

The National picture shows mixed fortunes. Overall radio slipped 54,000 on the twelve months, or 2%. But is only back marginally on the previous book and it’s showing no difference in the percentage reach at 83% on that book.    In terms of individual stations, the national broadcaster dropped 18,000 (2%) to 845,000 and maintained its 24%.2FM was back 3,000 year on year after having made some gains in the latter surveys. But these gains seem to have been largely eroded as they are down 18,000 book on book pointing to more recent listener defections, perhaps after the re-shuffle. Today

Dublin listenership straightened out after successive declines survey after survey. Actually, it’s not since 12Q1 has Dublin listenership increased on the previous survey. But taking the year on year approach listenership in the capital is down 15,000 and two percentage points on 13Q1. Oftentimes the pendulum swings underlying the headline figure are minute, but this year bucks that trend. The big faller, in the magnitude of 12%, was FM104 falling by 26,000 listeners to 194,000 (19%). The next to tumble was Spin dropping 9% and 13,000 listeners. Q102 and 98FM both dropped 9% as well and Today was down 4%

Here we take a look at the individual stations and their weekday daytime programmes. Two points to consider. Firstly the comparisons are year on year, not book on book so the comparisons in other quarters in many cases will be different – neither are wrong, the approaches are different that’s all. This survey, more than others, there have been some large or wholesale changes in programming across many stations. The programmes in the time slot now may well not be the one being compared to (Colm Hayes Vs Will Leahy is a good example) so it worth considering.      

I’ve updated this and expanded it to the top 30. We have twenty programmes for RTE1, five for Today FM, three for 2FM and two for Newstalk.  Anyway, a series of ups and downs. Marian has to get the award this quarter for a serious increase in traffic up 25%. Claire Byrne comes in for mention increasing by 17%. As for the sport figure of an 54% increase – it’s fairly baffling.         2014 # 2013 #     #+/- Morning Ireland RTE1 W/D 07.00-09.00 444 1 443 1 1 0%   Liveline RTE1 W/D 13.45-15.00 390

Turning now to the Regional franchises and the local stations – looked at collectively this time round as there are a better fit together rather than separating the two.   The regional stations are still performing well, but in every case they have a long way before they catch up on the local radio numbers. Although the home local dominates in every case it looks as if their grip is loosening as you can see from the individual graphs – most are in decline. Only in the Northeast are there signs that the local stations are making any sort of

The National picture has been more or less static in terms of overall Radio listenership for the past few surveys. In this survey it’s down from a 84% reach to 83% reach on the same period last year but stable on the previous survey.  Looking at the individual stations RTE1 dropped 19,000 listeners but kept its percentage reach, as did most stations in the survey. 2FM and Lyric saw marginal increases over the year but Today FM dropped a small 9,000 listeners. The big winner (and spender) over the last twelve months was Newstalk gaining 30,000 listeners in the twelve

Dublin listenership has slipped yet again and is now at a reach of 79% or 803,000 listeners. Actually the listenership in the capital has either been briefly static or in decline since the survey of 2011 Q1 which is eleven surveys back at this point. There’s very little to indicate the reason for the decline in Radio listenership in the capital and one can only speculate that other activities have taken the place of what was once solely “radio time”. Inside that overall figure of 803,000 is the battle between thirteen stations all competing for ears on a daily basis.

Here we take a look at the individual stations and their programmes and how they compare to the same survey last year. This comparison is the twelve months to December 2013 compared to the twelve months to December 2012. This year like others there will be differences in the comparative figures. The 2013 Q4 figure will be the same in all places that you read them, but the comparison figure is probably different here. These comparisons are twelve months over twelve months (2012 Q4 Vs 2013 Q4). So in other quarters you’ll find a difference in the performance of the

This is the top 30, and to be honest shakes up a bit of interest and it’s the portion of the survey that the rest of the media, mainly print media, pick up on. The big gains come from the two Sport slots on RTE at the weekend and Claire Byrne on a Saturday. It’s a fact of like that schedules change, so where possible the asterisk denotes that the comparison has changed. Fallers in Today’s schedule were for the KC Show and Phil Cawley shows and Drivetime and Playback on dropped on RTE1. Joe Duffy maintained his number two