JNLR 2014 Q3 National Listenership

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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 with some big falls in some programmes.

It’s a combination of lacklustre performances in parts and external attrition that they are facing. Newstalks continuing drive forward and the regional and local franchises are all chipping away at their numbers.

Compounding the wows in Montrose is it’s running mate, 2FM who also lost listeners down 18,000 (-5%) to 366,000 or 10% (down 1% point) of the population and again some individual slots had less that fantastic books

Newstalk was again the star of the survey adding 18% over the year, an increase of 82,000 listeners. At this point in 2013Q3 Pat Kenny was only in the seat two months of the survey and therefore his impact on the ’13 survey was minimal. In this survey he has a year under his belt accounting for the large numerical increase in this survey. It wasn’t down to a single individual effort that added the numbers to the station but it was across the board which has to of some comfort going forward. Hook makes no bones about retirement and it will be interesting to see what happens there – but it’s not until September 2016. 

Station 14Q3 13Q3 +/- +/-
Any Radio 2986 83% 2995 83% -9 0%
Any National 1638 46% 1624 45% 14 1%
Any RTE Radio 1212 34% 1231 34% -19 -2%
Any RTE1/2FM/Lyric 1191 33% 1211 34% -20 -2%
RTE Radio 1 837 23% 861 24% -24 -3%
RTE 2FM 366 10% 384 11% -18 -5%
RTE Lyric FM 142 4% 120 3% 22 18%
Today FM 463 13% 457 13% 6 1%
Newstalk 376 10% 294 8% 82 28%
Any Region/Local/M-City 2066 58% 2061 57% 5 0%
Home Local Station 1501 42% 1523 42% -22 -1%
Regional/Local 272 8% 269 7% 3 1%

In instances of rises and falls of Kenny’s magnitude it’s always best to have a look at the book on book results which are in the table below. This should irons out any to the severities of a year on year analysis.

But what this book heralded was that Newstalk has moved into the third slot in the national scene as it out manoeuvred 2FM by 10,000 listeners. In the 2013Q3 survey the gap between the two stations stood at 90,000 listeners and their 10,000 edge this survey shows the efforts Newstalk has made over the intervening twelve months.

  14Q3 14Q2 14Q1 13Q4 13Q3
Any Radio 2986 83% 2982 83% 2969 83% 2972 83% 2995 83%
Any National 1638 46% 1641 46% 1618 45% 1632 45% 1624 45%
Any RTE Radio 1212 34% 1216 34% 1217 34% 1232 34% 1231 34%
Any RTE1/2FM/Lyric 1191 33% 1195 33% 1199 33% 1214 34% 1211 34%
RTE Radio 1 837 23% 849 24% 845 24% 849 24% 861 24%
RTE 2FM 366 10% 366 10% 376 10% 394 11% 384 11%
RTE Lyric FM 142 4% 138 4% 128 4% 127 4% 120 3%
Today FM 463 13% 458 13% 442 12% 461 13% 457 13%
Newstalk 376 10% 365 10% 334 9% 315 9% 294 8%
Any Region/Local/M-City 2066 58% 2054 57% 2034 57% 2023 56% 2061 57%
Home Local Station 1501 42% 1497 42% 1491 42% 1488 41% 1523 42%
Regional/Local 272 8% 266 7% 261 7% 264 7% 269 7%

Another station with a large leap was Lyric gaining 22,000 listeners or 18% to leave them at 142,000 listeners every day. Today FM also added 5,000 listeners to leave them at 463,000 listeners and importantly added 10,000 in the capital – a parish they’ve struggled in historically.   

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To drill down a little I’ll look at the day parts for the nationals. Nothing new in the dominance of RTE1 in the graphs and you can tab through the graphics below which break up the day to give you a clearer picture of what’s going on under an overall number.

A few noticeable elements in the graphs: The Newstalk morning, especially its breakfast slot, is certainly grabbing the numbers but Today is clearly ahead. But the lift that Today FM has in the morning quickly disappears around lunchtime and they don’t seem to be able to capitalise on a good start. Figures only rise again when Matt Cooper sits down.

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Market Shares

Briefly turning to market shares and it’s still dominated by RTE1 with a 22.1% share which has slipped by 1.5% points in the year. It seems that the beneficiary was Newstalk who gained (the) 1.5%. Newstalk is now only a few decimals points away from third share slot occupied by 2FM and perhaps the next survey will get them there.

Station 14Q2 13Q2 +/-
Any Radio 100.0% 100.0% 0.0%
Any Region/Local/M-City 53.4% 53.0% 0.4%
Any National 46.6% 47.0% -0.4%
Home Local Station 38.5% 39.2% -0.7%
Any RTE Radio 31.4% 33.0% -1.6%
Any RTE1/2FM/Lyric 30.6% 32.4% -1.8%
RTE Radio 1 22.1% 23.4% -1.3%
Today FM 9.0% 9.1% -0.1%
RTE 2FM 6.6% 7.3% -0.7%
Newstalk 6.3% 4.8% 1.5%
Other Regional/Local Station 5.0% 4.9% 0.1%
RTE Lyric FM 2.0% 1.7% 0.3%

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