Overall listenership in Dublin dropped marginally by 8,000 to 809,000 and a reach of 80%. The Dublin landscape is very interesting and changeable each survey. Again the caveat here is certainly to take into account the comparison between surveys, but also to look at the bigger picture of where a station is trending over a few surveys. RTE1 dominates the Dublin listenership with 286,000 listeners and a 28% reach. Its closest rival is FM104 at 207,000 (20%) down 19,000 on the same survey last year. Spin is a distant third at 13% or 135,000 back 23,000 on 2012 Q3 and 98FM

The defection of Pat Kenny to Newstalk was a broadside, to say the least. The full impact of the move will only be felt perhaps in six months when the JNLR begins to pick up the possible defectors. I will leave the would-be programme directors to speculate as to who will fill the void in the morning and how the new format will look. But, let’s ponder the numerics of the move on a few different levels.   Firstly the current state of play shows that Pat outstrips its rivals in the morning slot. I’ve added the times of each

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

You couldn’t say that that, at a reach of 84% of the population, there was any real cause for alarm. But the radio picture does seem to have a particular trend to it. Perhaps, like other media, there is a touch of fragmentation happening and that more attention and listening minutes is on the digital landscape. 

Dubliners have thirteen stations to choose from so it’s a very busy parish to be plying your trade in. Not unlike the national picture, the dominant player is RTE1 having a reach of 27% and 274,000 listeners on average every day. Their dominance has been severely eroded over the past few surveys and they are down 24,000 listeners and five percentage points over the same period last year. Actually, their high point in Dublin was at the very start of this year and they have been dropping each subsequent survey – down 17,000 on the last quarter (Q3) for example.