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 market.
At the bottom of this article are the listenership figures going back five years – all for the last quarter of each year.. Back in 2006, when we were being licked in the face by the now extinct Celtic Tiger, 2FM had a national audience figure of 18% or 618,000 adults every day. Compared now to 394,000 listeners in 2011, that’s a 56% drop in listeners.
Today FM managed to gain 14,000 listeners, but still stood at a 13% reach nationally. Newstalk gained a fairly impressive 27,000 and that added one point to its waistline pushing it to 9%. They will be encouraged by the fact that most of those gains were in Dublin (+27,000), which is a hard nut to crack given the competitive nature of the market.
Outside that the stations have remained fairly static, bar one.
| 2012 | 20102 | Diff | |||||||
| ‘000 | R% | S% | ‘000 | R% | S% | ‘+/- ‘000 | ‘+/- R% | ‘+/- S% | |
| Any Radio | 2,977 | 85% | 100.00% | 2,988 | 85% | 100.00% | -11 | 0% | 0% |
| Any Regional | 2,041 | 58% | 52.40% | 2,016 | 57% | 53.60% | 25 | 1% | -1% |
| Any National | 1,634 | 47% | 47.60% | 1,637 | 47% | 46.40% | -3 | 0% | 1% |
| Any RTE Radio | 1,228 | 35% | 33.40% | 1,267 | 36% | 33.00% | -39 | -1% | 0% |
| Any RTE | 1,210 | 34% | 32.80% | 1,253 | 36% | 32.60% | -43 | -2% | 0% |
| RTE Radio 1 | 876 | 25% | 23.40% | 869 | 25% | 22.70% | 7 | 0% | 1% |
| Today FM | 467 | 13% | 9.50% | 453 | 13% | 9.30% | 14 | 0% | 0% |
| RTE 2FM | 394 | 11% | 7.50% | 454 | 13% | 8.20% | -60 | -2% | -1% |
| Newstalk | 299 | 9% | 4.70% | 272 | 8% | 4.00% | 27 | 1% | 1% |
| RTE Lyric FM | 124 | 4% | 1.90% | 115 | 3% | 1.70% | 9 | 1% | 0% |
It’s a bit crowded – but it’s a good snapshot of each year.
| National – Yesterday | 2011 | 2011 | 2010 | 2010 | 2009 | 2009 | 2008 | 2008 | 2007 | 2007 | 2006 | 2006 |
| % R | % S | % R | % S | % R | % S | % R | % S | % R | % S | % R | % S | |
| Any Regional/Local | 58 | 52 | 57 | 54 | 58 | 51 | 55 | 50 | 52 | 48 | 56 | 51 |
| RTÉ Radio 1 | 25 | 23 | 25 | 23 | 26 | 23 | 24 | 22 | 23 | 22 | 24 | 21 |
| RTÉ 2FM | 11 | 7 | 13 | 8 | 15 | 10 | 16 | 12 | 17 | 13 | 18 | 13 |
| RTÉ Lyric FM | 4 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 12 | 3 | 2 |
| Today FM | 13 | 9 | 13 | 9 | 15 | 10 | 16 | 11 | 16 | 2 | 16 | 12 |
| Newstalk | 9 | 5 | 8 | 4 | 8 | 4 | 7 | 3 | 6 | 3 |
