The local stations are doing well and collectively they are up 24,000 or one percentage point. In general it’s a very static affair with Highland Radio still retaining a 65% reach in its franchise area. One notable movement was Galway Bay FM that managed to add 16,000 listeners and improve its reach to by 7% to 45%. The franchises for Wicklow, Louth/Meath & Kildare always seem to struggle to get an audience being in the Dublin commuter belt and therefore lumped in with the capitals competition.

The leader board is very much the same in terms of players, but some positions have changed.  Joe is still not King. He’s the heir apparent no doubt, but this quarter again still only second in line to the RTE and national throne. The big ones would be Marion’s’ Sunday slot loosing 44,000 listeners and dropping in the table from #4 to #9. The biggest gain in the top 30 was Playback adding 24,000 listeners and Sunday Miscellany likewise adding 24,000. Notably both are the early morning slots at the weekend and showing good gains. Drivetime also pulled in and

There is always a big analysis (outside these four walls) on the individual programmes in the schedule and who’s doing what. The analysis is based on absolute numbers and, therefore, the comparison to last year might be thrown due to the change in the universe. In each analysis it comes down to who has the bragging rights – and that would be Morning Ireland which reaches 441,000 people every morning (or 12% or the population). Only 10,000 behind and closing rapidly is Joe Duffy on 431,000, up 33,000 listeners on the previous twelve months. The only other surprises in the

Finally the Local listeners. Still on top by a country mile is Highland Radio followed by Mayo’s finest Midwest – the rest of the figures are fairly straightforward. It’s worth pointing out the leap that Galway Bay took gaining eight percentage points. Likewise Tipp FM gained 5 percentage points. Conversely KCLR dropped five points and Midlands dropped four. 

The local stations are showing mixed results, but one that stands out is Galway Bay FM. Over the two surveys they have managed to increase their listenership by a staggering 33%. This is followed by East Coast and Tipp FM who both added 15% to their numbers. On the other end of the scale WLR FM dropped 15% and KCLR 96FM who dropped 12%. Nine increases and seven fallers in this year’s Local radio numbers. Station County 12-2 ‘000 12-2 % 11-2 ‘000 11-2 % +/- +/- Highland Radio Nth Donegal 69 67% 66 67% 3 5% Mid West Radio

Looking now at the individual radio programmes. With the change in the universes between the two annual surveys it makes the absolute figures a little bit redundant. One could rebase one of the years so that a status quo is maintained to a degree – but it’s not the “done thing” in survey reporting. This year the universe increased by 2.76%, so in order to ‘stand still’ you should be (theoretically) increasing by that in absolute numbers. The % column is the absolute change in reach which is, in this case, the constant in both surveys. For example, Pat Kenny

The JNLR national radio listenership figures were released today. The first item to record is that whilst the increases in the absolute numbers of listeners for some stations look nothing short of meteoric, it would have to be tempered with some other numbers. The universe used suggests, like last time out, that the population has grown from 3,511,000 to 3,608,000. So while stations may have larger absolute listener numbers, their percentage reach may have stayed the same. In other words the same slice of a bigger pie. The research does show that Radio is still a very powerful medium reaching

Normally very little happens in the National scene and that follows through again this year.  Radio listenership is up 56,000 and the gains can be attributed to a variety of sources. The National stations are up 46,000, the Regionals up 87,000 and the Locals up 52,000. Naturally there’s a lot of crossover there, but the sector is doing well. RTE’s woes continued with 2FM shedding even more listeners and is now down to 409,000 and only 80,000 in the capital.  Actually, Shannonside/Northern Sound has more listeners in total than 2FM does in the capital. 2FM are the only national station

The Local listenership also suffered at the hands of the mathematicians when the national population estimates changes from 3,516,000 to 3,608,000.  Station County 12-1 ‘000 12-1 % 11-1 ‘000 11-1 % +/- +/- Mid West Radio Mayo 63 61% 53 51% 10 10% Tipp FM Tipperary 60 48% 53 43% 7 5% South East Radio Wexford 44 39% 38 35% 6 4% Galway Bay FM Galway 81 41% 76 40% 5 1% Midlands 103FM Laois/Off/WM 70 38% 65 36% 5 2% Shann/Northern Snd RN/LD/LM/CN/MN 93 47% 89 46% 4 1% Highland Radio Nth Donegal 68 66% 65 66% 3 0%

Dublin radio listenership gained ever so slightly in the last 12 months rising by 19,000 people in the metropolis. But as a straight head count that’s encouraging, but in percentage terms it looks very different. The survey this quarter was altered slightly to reflect the population changes in the capital and the “estimated universe” aka theoretical survey population moved from 967,000 to 1,028,000 – a gain of 61,000 people (the census shows an 89,000 growth in the capitals population) It basically moves the goalposts and will antagonise the copywriters who will spend today day “shining up (the other word)” for

Reach in ‘000 accross the day from 6:00am until 8:00pm  {module JNLR 2011 V 2010}

Still dominating the capital is the National broadcaster RTE1 having pulled back 3% points on the same period last year. 2FM dipping into single digits in Dublin has to be worrying (again). Perhaps Montrose would allow the newly appointed Commercial Director, Willie O’Reilly, to look at 2FM for a week or two and come up with a plan. It strikes me that there is none currently and that the station is bouncing around from one bad survey to yet another. Maybe the time Willie spent at a truly commercial station might be a source of some inspiration for the ailing