To be honest, there’s something a little unsettling reporting numbers with such meteoric increases – on a year on year basis – without any real inkling of that being the underlying trend. Things going well perhaps I’d permit, but not the eye watering increases seen here on a year on year basis. The table showing each stations quarter thankfully dilutes the year on year table somewhat and keeps the focus on the underlying quarter by quarter picture.
Listenership in the capital now stands at 81% or 826,000 people and this is the fourth successive survey where radio in the city has been more popular than in the previous survey. Of the thirteen stations surveyed in Dublin, a sizeable eight stations are showing a double digit growth between 2014Q4 and 2013Q3 in Dublin.
| 14Q4 | 13Q4 | +/- | +/- | Ch | |||
| RTE Radio 1 | 285 | 28% | 286 | 28% | -1 | 0% | 0% |
| FM 104 | 187 | 18% | 196 | 20% | -9 | -2% | -5% |
| Newstalk | 170 | 17% | 128 | 12% | 42 | 5% | 33% |
| Spin 1038 | 142 | 14% | 127 | 13% | 15 | 1% | 12% |
| 98FM | 110 | 9% | 85 | 8% | 25 | 1% | 29% |
| Q102 | 97 | 9% | 87 | 8% | 10 | 1% | 11% |
| Today FM | 88 | 10% | 81 | 10% | 7 | 0% | 9% |
| RTE 2FM | 75 | 7% | 72 | 7% | 3 | 0% | 4% |
| RTE Lyric FM | 56 | 6% | 55 | 5% | 1 | 1% | 2% |
| Radio Nova 100FM* | 55 | 5% | 50 | 5% | 5 | 0% | 10% |
| Sunshine 106.8 | 43 | 4% | 33 | 3% | 10 | 1% | 30% |
| Classic Hits 4FM | 38 | 4% | 31 | 3% | 7 | 1% | 23% |
| Phantom 105.2FM | 20 | 2% | 15 | 2% | 5 | 0% | 33% |
Similar to the national picture, Newstalk has lead the charge increasing its listenership in the capital by a massive 33% (42,000) to 170,000 and a 17% reach. It’s now only a mere 17,000 listeners for the bragging rights of second place in Dublin as detailed in the graph here.
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FM104 was the only station with a fall in numbers dropping marginally to 187,000. But on a book on book basis the station did manage to increase listenership by 5,000 listeners. Actually, book on book all the Dublin stations made gains.
98FM made significant inroads increasing its listenership by 25,000 to 110,000 or 9% year on year. Likewise Spin increased its listenership by 15,000 to bring it to 142,000 or a 14% reach. Q102 revived its fortunes adding 10,000 listeners on the previous year. More importantly, it added 15,000 listeners book on book which takes it out of what can only be described as the speed-wobble in the last book when it dropped to 82,000.
| National | Dublin | Dublin % | |
| Population | 3596 | 1019 | 28.3% |
| Newstalk | 392 | 170 | 43.4% |
| RTE Lyric FM | 137 | 56 | 40.9% |
| RTE Radio 1 | 836 | 285 | 34.1% |
| Any National | 1642 | 477 | 29.0% |
| Any Radio | 3006 | 826 | 27.5% |
| RTE 2FM | 375 | 75 | 20.0% |
| Today FM | 460 | 88 | 19.1% |
Today FM and 2FM struggle in the Big Smoke and have done for some time. They are disproportionally represented in Dublin in comparison to other stations and the population demographic as a whole. At the same time it could also be argued that Newstalk is losing sight of the country relatives and would need to spend some time cultivating that relationship.
*Nova 100FM is actually in the broader Dublin Commuter franchise where it has a full listenership of 71,000 (6%) and a share of 3.80%.
Shares
Nothing to see here folks… Just that Radio 1 lost two and a half points year on year, Newstalk gained 1.5% points and 98FM added 1.1% points. The rest I’ll leave to the causal observer.
| Station | 14Q4 | 13Q4 | +/- |
| RTE Radio 1 | 32.30% | 34.80% | -2.50% |
| FM104 | 11.70% | 12.10% | -0.40% |
| Newstalk | 10.50% | 9.00% | 1.50% |
| Spin 1038 | 7.00% | 6.90% | 0.10% |
| Q102 | 6.50% | 6.70% | -0.20% |
| 98FM | 6.40% | 5.30% | 1.10% |
| Today FM | 5.90% | 6.20% | -0.30% |
| RTE 2FM | 4.90% | 5.40% | -0.50% |
| Nova 100FM | 3.40% | 4.20% | -0.80% |
| RTE Lyric FM | 3.30% | 2.80% | 0.50% |
| Sunshine 106.8 | 3.30% | 2.50% | 0.80% |
| Classic Hits 4FM | 2.50% | 2.60% | -0.10% |
| TXFM | 1.30% | 0.80% | 0.50% |
In the graphic below Radio 1 has to be removed from the graphic so that we can see a little more clearly what’s going on.
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Quarter Hour
Finally let’s see how the Dublin stations (Ex-Radio1) fair through the day. From the first tab you can see that Newstalk makes massive gains in the morning dominating FM104 for much of it. However, come midday the Dubliners abandon the station in their droves and don’t make a return until much later in the evening.
It’s a similar picture with Today FM where the old reliable “Iano” entertains the Dubliners in the morning which sling shots somewhat through to midday – and then mass desertion! Matt Cooper drags a few in from 4:30 but the station is down to around 8,000 for most of the afternoon.
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