In this 2016Q2 survey radio listenership in Dublin fell to 78% for the first time in some time. I’ve tracked back to 2009Q1 and it still hadn’t once dipped into that region. In this survey it fell 2% on the previous year or 16,000 listeners but only lost 2,000 on the previous book to leave it at 816,000 for the survey.
While the underlying figure (816,000) is still higher than previous surveys (changes in sample size etc have had a effect on these numbers) the listening reach and, more so, it’s recent direction should be of some concern.
The year on year figures are starker in terms of their declines than the book on book which is to be expected. Eight of the thirteen radio stations surveyed declined book on book with the biggest fallers being RTE1 (-9,000), 2FM (-7,000), Today FM (-6,000) and Spin (-5,000). 98FM had a good quarter adding 8,000 to their numbers.
The only station to show any promise was 98FM who added 10% on the quarter to bring them to 115,000 and most of that gain coming in the Q2 where they added 8,000 listeners.
Again, like in the national picture, one of the standouts is the performance of 2FM. Over the year it has lost 24% of its listenership in the capital or 18,000 listeners, 7,000 of which abandoned the station in the last quarter. It’s not alone in this listenership flight. Today FM lost 20,000 in the year and 6,000 from Q2. Newstalk lost 16,000 over the twelve months and Q102 dropped 11,000 but the latter two managing to hold their own on the last book.
Dublin radio listenership is under pressure whether it’s down to apathy on the part of the listening public or competition from other sources. Without sounding Dublin centric the capital does play an important part in the radio picture. It may be no coincidence that all of the top ten programmes in the national listenership ‘chart’ have a disproportionately higher draw from the metropolis than average listenership. I’m not saying that it’s the panacea for ailing programme slots or indeed a Willy Wonka type Golden ticket (look what happened most of those winners!) – but, in order to score high on the national stage you have to do it better in the capital.
Table: Dublin Listenership
| Year On Year | Book on Book | ||||||||||||
| 2016Q2 | 2015Q2 | +/- | +/- | Ch | 16Q1 | +/- | +/- | Ch | |||||
| Any Radio | 816 | 78% | 832 | 81% | -16 | -3% | -2% | 818 | 79% | -2 | -1% | 0% | |
| Any National | 466 | 45% | 501 | 49% | -35 | -4% | -7% | 478 | 46% | -12 | -1% | -3% | |
| RTE Radio 1 | 296 | 28% | 305 | 30% | -9 | -2% | -3% | 305 | 30% | -9 | -2% | -3% | |
| FM 104 | 188 | 18% | 188 | 18% | 0 | 0% | 0% | 189 | 18% | -1 | 0% | -1% | |
| Newstalk | 154 | 15% | 170 | 17% | -16 | -2% | -9% | 154 | 15% | 0 | 0% | 0% | |
| Spin 1038 | 140 | 13% | 149 | 15% | -9 | -2% | -6% | 145 | 14% | -5 | -1% | -3% | |
| 98FM | 115 | 11% | 105 | 10% | 10 | 1% | 10% | 107 | 10% | 8 | 1% | 7% | |
| Today FM | 79 | 8% | 99 | 10% | -20 | -2% | -20% | 85 | 8% | -6 | 0% | -7% | |
| Q102 | 76 | 7% | 87 | 9% | -11 | -2% | -13% | 76 | 7% | 0 | 0% | 0% | |
| RTE Lyric FM | 59 | 6% | 58 | 6% | 1 | 0% | 2% | 57 | 6% | 2 | 0% | 4% | |
| RTE 2FM | 58 | 6% | 76 | 7% | -18 | -1% | -24% | 65 | 6% | -7 | 0% | -11% | |
| Radio Nova | 57 | 5% | 56 | 5% | 1 | 0% | 2% | 56 | 5% | 1 | 0% | 2% | |
| Sunshine 106.8 | 57 | 5% | 55 | 5% | 2 | 0% | 4% | 60 | 6% | -3 | -1% | -5% | |
| Classic Hits 4FM | 32 | 3% | 35 | 3% | -3 | 0% | -9% | 36 | 3% | -4 | 0% | -11% | |
| Phantom | 16 | 2% | 22 | 2% | -6 | 0% | -27% | 18 | 2% | -2 | 0% | -11% | |
Graphic : Dublin Reach
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This time out I’ve compiled a top twenty programmes in Dublin across the week. There’s no point in slavishly going through each item as you can draw your own conclusions. Just a few notables: This Week dropping 28,000 on the book, Claire Byrne shedding 12,000 and Miriam O’Callaghan dropping 10,000. You might think that this would be counterbalanced by some big gains, but the largest is Strawberry Alarm adding 4,000.
Table: Dublin Top 30
| 16Q2 | 16Q1 | 15Q2 | YoY | BoB | |||||
| 1 | RTE 1 W/D | Morning Ireland | 165 | 167 | 168 | -3 | -2% | -2 | -1% |
| 2 | RTE 1 Sat | Marian Finucane | 163 | 170 | 170 | -7 | -4% | -7 | -4% |
| 3 | RTE 1 Sun | Marian Finucane | 142 | 152 | 153 | -11 | -7% | -10 | -7% |
| 4 | RTE 1 W/D | Sean O’Rourke | 138 | 144 | 144 | -6 | -4% | -6 | -4% |
| 5 | RTE 1 W/D | Liveline | 127 | 132 | 114 | 13 | 11% | -5 | -4% |
| 6 | RTE 1 W/D | Tubridy | 126 | 126 | 120 | 6 | 5% | 0 | 0% |
| 7 | RTE 1 Sat | The Business | 123 | 129 | 120 | 3 | 3% | -6 | -5% |
| 8 | RTE 1 W/D | News at One | 117 | 126 | 111 | 6 | 5% | -9 | -7% |
| 9 | RTE 1 Sat | Playback | 103 | 107 | 106 | -3 | -3% | -4 | -4% |
| 10 | RTE 1 Sun | Miriam O’Callaghan | 95 | 105 | 99 | -4 | -4% | -10 | -10% |
| 11 | RTE 1 W/D | Ronan Collins | 91 | 94 | 97 | -6 | -6% | -3 | -3% |
| 12 | RTE 1 Sun | Sunday Miscellany | 90 | 88 | 69 | 21 | 30% | 2 | 2% |
| 13 | FM104 W/D | The 10-3 Show | 89 | 91 | 87 | 2 | 2% | -2 | -2% |
| 14 | RTE 1 W/D | Drivetime | 85 | 90 | 82 | 3 | 4% | -5 | -6% |
| 15 | RTE 1 Sat | Claire Byrne | 85 | 97 | 112 | -27 | -24% | -12 | -12% |
| 16 | FM104 W/D | Strawberry Alarm | 80 | 76 | 83 | -3 | -4% | 4 | 5% |
| 17 | Spin W/D | Steve K | 79 | 83 | 90 | -11 | -12% | -4 | -5% |
| 18 | RTE 1 Sun | This Week | 77 | 105 | 117 | -40 | -34% | -28 | -27% |
| 19 | Newstalk W/D | Breakfast | 75 | 77 | 80 | -5 | -6% | -2 | -3% |
| 20 | FM104 W/D | The Jam | 68 | 71 | 70 | -2 | -3% | -3 | -4% |
A Footnote:
I can’t take the applause for this as “Expunge” in the boards.ie brought this to my attention. Much to the shock of some of the country folk, the recent results have only confirmed what the city slickers have known for some time. They are not uncultured ‘tall and are, in fact, highly sophisticated and embrace d’arts:
Dublin listenership for Lyric is currently 59,000 and 2FM 58,000 – I feel the graphic below says it all.
