The latest JNLR figures hold no real surprise in some quarters. Radio listenership, whilst still particularly healthy with a 85% penetration, has dropped back a little on last year’s comparable figures. Radio 2011 2011 2010 2010 000 +/- Any Radio 2979 85% 3024 86% -45 Any National 1610 46% 1678 48% -68 Any RTE Radio 1228 35% 1299 37% -71 RTE1/2FM/Lyric 1208 34% 1290 37% -82 RTE Radio 1 873 25% 858 24% 15 RTE

In order to digest this you’d have to take this in two chunks. The first part we will deal with the ‘national stations’ and later we will deal with the ‘local stations’. As with most research/analysis – the numbers normally speak for themselves, as they do in this case. The comparison in this case is with the previous year – the exact twelve months – July to June in each year. I struggle to understand

Looking at the local stations and the king pin is still Highland Radio, but it has fallen back year on year. Some of the station had a free run for years competing only against the National broadcaster. However most of the multi city stations have built up a significant listenership over the past few years. In the main most, of the local stations have fallen on the back of strengthening figures from the multi city

In the Capital, the radio waves are pretty crowded with twelve stations, not including any spill-over or community based stations. Radio reaches 85% of the capitals citizens or 837,000 people every day (average listened yesterday). The National Broadcaster dominates, reaching 38% of the population in some form or another. RTE1 reaches 30% (292,000) of the market, up 1% on the previous twelve months. Like its showing in the national market, 2FM struggled in the City

Radio seems in a healthy state. It manages to captivate 85% of the population on an average weekday. That’s just over the 3m mark and only loosing 40,000 pairs of ears over the twelve month period to April 2010 to March 2011. But the results from the JNLR show that, for yet another quarter, 2FM have lost listeners in their droves. Over the year they have managed to rid themselves of nearly 100,000 listeners dropping

The JNLR figures thump in the desks today and, on the surface it would seem that there is a small shift away from radio. National – Yesterday 2010 2010 2009 2009 2008 2008 2007 2007 2006 2006 % R % S % R % S % R % S % R % S % R % S Any Regional/Local 57 54 58 51 55 50 52 48 56 51 RTÉ Radio 1 25 23 26

In terms of the overall health of the listening market within the local franchises, that figure varies considerably across the counties. In the OceanFM franchise – Donegal South/Sligo/Nth Leit – the listened to any radio yesterday figure is 95% whereas in the East Coast FM area, Wicklow, that figure plummets to 79%. Many a thesis could be forwarded as to the difference in the listening base – but none to be found here. Of the

Cork’s story is that it saw some of the biggest swings in the major franchises. The listened to yesterday for Cork was 81% down from 85% the previous 12 months (21,000 listeners). 2Fm, again, lost out as did 96FM which dropped a fairly substantial 4% points. The C103  gain in share helped the combined figure not look as stark a drop as it could have been. Having said that it’s still the station in Cork

Turning the attentions to the Dublin area, the runners and riders are listed below, as is there form to date. Dublin – Yesterday 2010 2010 2009 2009 +/- +/- R% S% R% S% R% S% RTÉ Radio 1 29 30.5 30 32.8 -1.0 -2.3 RTÉ 2FM 10 7.0 12 8.3 -2.0 -1.3 RTÉ Lyric FM 5 3.2 5 2.9 0.0 0.3 Today FM 9 5.8 10 7.0 -1.0 -1.2 Newstalk 10 5.9 11 7.0 -1.0

Looking at the National Listenership figures, one would think that RTE, as a whole, was having a torrid time dropping 39,000 in their combined listenership. But its only one station in the stable that’s making it look so bad – 2FM. Last quarter in 2011 it lost 60,000 listeners compared to the same quarter in 2010. Given that, in general, radio listenership has stayed the same year on year, it’s nothing to do with the

This is the place we can dole out a few Radio Oscars! The regional listenership is normally a fairly static affair, but this year it’s thrown up a few surprises – good ones as well. For this analysis, we decided to look both at their local reach in percentage terms and also in actual numbers. At a first look at numbers, they seem deceptive, just note that we are looking at different size populations in

The last quarter of 2010 shows, like the first quarter, very little has changed to the capitals radio listening habits. They still, en masse, like Radio 1, they are still jettisoning 2FM in their droves and, if you’re not tuned into Radio 1, you have to be too young and are instead listening to FM104 [55% of FM104 listeners are aged between 15-24 compared to 13% in the case of Radio One]. FM104 is now

The JNLR for the period October 2009 to September 2010 has been released. Before we delve into the figures, these two facts should be considered. In many cases (even the official B.A.I. press release) comparisons are generally made between figures 12 months to the third quarter 2010 and the 12 months to the second quarter 2009. However, we advocate the much vaunted theory of “apples and oranges” and the fact that then cont be counted

Evening loosing 2% points in Dublin, RTE 1 is still the dominant player in the market and by nearly 100,000 pairs of ears. FM104 is its nearest rival in the capital at a reach of 189,000 people followed by Spin at 140,000 how have vaulted a place to second over the past 12 months. But lurking in the background and doing very steady work is Q102. Currently in 5th position they have been grabbing listeners

Turning our attention to the regional stations, some have had a better 12 months than others. Still the outright leader in this league table is Highland with a fairly formidable 69% reach. The three stations bordering capital are at the bottom of the table and it would be simply down to competition in the Greater Dublin area. Not only have the surrounding counties franchises have to contend with the competition from the nationals – but

Local radio  is alive and well some better than others, but that’s down to a variety of factors. Still dominant (relative to it’s peers) is Highland Radio with a reach of 69% of its franchise area. On the other hand is Kfm who only 24% its franchise area. To be frank, it’s easy to see how that would happen in their situation with such a variety of radio sources available in Kildare – including ‘spill

As we await the JNLR tomorrow, I heard an interesting conversation on the said medium. I was listening to the fact that Mr Yates is (allegedly) none to keen on the 3:30am awakenings so that he can present the morning show on Newstalk so is looking for a new slot (allegedly). The mantra in the radio business is: Win the morning – win the day. So I was curious as to how the morning pans