JNLR 2014 Q4 National Listenership

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In this survey (2014Q4) the overall national listenership of radio grew marginally by 34,000 to 84%, but this also pushed it over the 3m listener mark. That’s up one percentage point on the survey of 2013Q4 and it’s the biggest national listenership radio has enjoyed since the survey of 2013Q2 as each subsequent survey the overall radio figure has remained either static or shown marginal declines visualised in the graph(s) below. 

Underneath this figure lie varying fortunes. The chatter over the last few books has been around Newstalk and its Lazarus like transformation compared to earlier years. Comparing it to the 2013Q4 book Newstalk has seen is listenership increase by some 24% (+77,000) to leave it now at 392,000 (11%). Book on book it’s up a modest (relative to its twelve month performance) 4%.

Station 14Q4   13Q4   +/- +/-3 c3
Any Radio 84% 3006   83% 2972   1% 34 1%
Region/Local/M-City 58% 2102   56% 2023   2% 79 4%
Any National 46% 1642   45% 1632   1% 10 1%
Home Local Station 43% 1534   41% 1488   2% 46 3%
Any RTE Radio 34% 1214   34% 1232   0% -18 -1%
Any RTE1/2FM/Lyric 33% 1193   34% 1214   -1% -21 -2%
RTE Radio 1 23% 836   24% 849   -1% -13 -2%
Today FM 13% 460   13% 461   0% -1 0%
Newstalk 11% 392   9% 315   2% 77 24%
RTE 2FM 10% 375   11% 394   -1% -19 -5%
Regional/Local 8% 278   7% 264   1% 14 5%
RTE Lyric FM 4% 137   4% 127   0% 10 8%

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 It’s got its stable mate Today FM firmly in its sights and is now only 68,000 listeners away from it compared to 146,000 this time last year. Given that it added 77,000 in the last twelve months you can do the speculative maths alone. 

Radio1 had a 2% decline dropping 13,000 listeners and coming in at 836,000 or a 23% reach, which is still very healthy by any media standard. 2FM, on the other hand, dropped 19,000 or 5% to bring them in at 375,000 and slipping further away from Newstalk. It would be rude not to mention that book on book 2FM did add 3% – so perhaps in the more recent past things are looking better.

Today FM held their ground only dropping 1,000 listeners, but on a book on book basis they were down marginally by 3,000. Lyric performed well adding 8% bring them to 137,000 (4%) and Home Locals and the Regionals also gained some ground on twelve months back.

  14Q4 14Q3 14Q2 14Q1 13Q4 13Q3
Any Radio 3006 84% 2986 83% 2982 83% 2969 83% 2972 83% 2995 83%
Any National 1642 46% 1638 46% 1641 46% 1618 45% 1632 45% 1624 45%
Home Local Station 1534 43% 1501 42% 1497 42% 1491 42% 1488 41% 1523 42%
Any RTE Radio 1214 34% 1212 34% 1216 34% 1217 34% 1232 34% 1231 34%
RTE Radio 1 836 23% 837 23% 849 24% 845 24% 849 24% 861 24%
Today FM 460 13% 463 13% 458 13% 442 12% 461 13% 457 13%
Newstalk 392 11% 376 10% 365 10% 334 9% 315 9% 294 8%
RTE 2FM 375 10% 366 10% 366 10% 376 10% 394 11% 384 11%
Regional/Local 278 8% 272 8% 266 7% 261 7% 264 7% 269 7%
RTE Lyric FM 137 4% 142 4% 138 4% 128 4% 127 4% 120 3%

 Shares

Turning to market shares where some of the losses/gains in overall listenership were reflected in the shares. RTE Radio, as a group, lost 2.4% points compared to the previous twelve months driven by Radio1 and 2FM who lost 1.9% and 0.8% respectively.  Newstalk is up 1.6% points in the twelve months as were the regional stations, the only two benefactors in the share part of the national survey.         

Station 14Q4 13Q3 +/-
Any Radio 100.0% 100.0% 0.0%
Any Region/Local/M-City 54.3% 53.0% 1.3%
Any National 45.7% 47.0% -1.3%
Home Local Station 39.2% 39.2% 0.0%
Any RTE Radio 30.6% 33.0% -2.4%
Any RTE1/2FM/Lyric 29.9% 32.4% -2.5%
RTE Radio 1 21.5% 23.4% -1.9%
Today FM 8.7% 9.1% -0.4%
RTE 2FM 6.5% 7.3% -0.8%
Newstalk 6.4% 4.8% 1.6%
Other Regional/Local Station 5.0% 4.9% 0.1%
RTE Lyric FM 1.9% 1.7% 0.2%

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The graph above (stations only) shows the slow erosion of the Radio1 dominance, albeit still managing to maintain 13% points on its nearest rival Today FM. And also Newstalk just missing out on catching up on 2FM – but I’d guess that will change in this quarter.

Finally a courtesy look at the day parts for the different stations – which are explored elsewhere here in greater detail. Again the dominance of Radio1 in the morning and lunchtime is the only real story in the graphs. Also that Newstalk’s early in the morning has the edge on 2FM but then they relinquish that grip until George takes to the airwaves much later in the day.

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