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 why the likes of the BCI and BAI, when issuing these results, will draw their comparisons to a different survey period – but anyway, these are like with like.
RTE1 still dominates the airwaves (we’ll dig some stuff up later!) although it’s listenership dipped slightly over the past 12 months. It’s sibling, 2FM seems to be loosing traction year on year all round and its share of listening has this survey dipped into single digits. The same could be said for Today FM whose reach is now 14% and share at 9%. Newstalk and Lyric are fairly static.
In the three years the listened to ‘any national’ has dropped from 50% to 48% of the population – a drop of 69,000. Some abandoning radio altogether and some heading the local direction.
In the regions outside the two major urban centres – it looks as if the local /regional stations are taking their share of listeners from the national franchises.
In Dublin RTE1 again is the dominant station and gaining slightly year in year. While the two doyens of Dublin Radio – 98 (with the name change) and FM104 slug it out near the top there is a real battle for supremacy stirring underneath. The likes of Q102 who three years ago were #7 out of 11 is now #5 and with the momentum and their share could soon be tugging at the shirt tails of 98. Whilst Spin has a marginally better reach (0nly 8,000 listened yesterday) Q102 listeners tend to spend much greater time tuned in – a bigger draw to advertisers. Whilst 2FM held its reach it didn’t hold its share.
Cork is relatively static dominated by 96FM a stalemate in UTV Media with Q102 and FM104. The only ripple on the status quo was that Today FM lost out to Newstalk possibly is a bit of number swapping at drive time.
| Reach | Share | Reach | Share | Reach | Share | ||||
| 10/09 | 10/09 | 09/08 | 09/08 | 08/07 | 08/07 | ||||
| National | |||||||||
| Any Regional/Local | 58 | 52.5 | 56 | 49.4 | 53 | 48.8 | |||
| RTÉ Radio 1 | 24 | 22.6 | 25 | 23.0 | 23 | 21.3 | |||
| RTÉ 2FM | 14 | 9.3 | 16 | 10.9 | 17 | 12.4 | |||
| Today FM | 14 | 9.6 | 15 | 10.6 | 16 | 11.7 | |||
| Newstalk 106-108FM | 7 | 4.0 | 7 | 3.7 | 6 | 3.7 | |||
| RTÉ Lyric FM | 3 | 1.6 | 4 | 1.6 | 3 | 1.6 | |||
| National (Not Dubl/Cork) | |||||||||
| Any Regional/Local | 61 | 55.5 | 58 | 50.8 | 55 | 48.9 | |||
| RTÉ 2FM | 16 | 10.7 | 19 | 12.9 | 20 | 14.4 | |||
| RTÉ Radio 1 | 22 | 18.7 | 24 | 19.4 | 21 | 18.2 | |||
| Today FM | 15 | 10.7 | 17 | 12.2 | 19 | 14.4 | |||
| Newstalk 106-108 FM | 6 | 3.1 | 6 | 2.3 | 4 | 2.4 | |||
| RTÉ Lyric FM | 2 | 0.9 | 3 | 1.2 | 2 | 1.0 | |||
| Regional | |||||||||
| 4FM (multi-city) | 3 | 2.0 | 2 | 1.0 | |||||
| Beat 102-103FM | 19 | 11.5 | 20 | 12.1 | 19 | 11.1 | |||
| i102-104+ | 19 | 13.6 | 16 | 9.1 | 5 | 1.6 | |||
| Spin South West | 19 | 10.0 | 18 | 9.9 | 14 | 8.3 | |||
| i105-107FM | 6 | 3.8 | 1 | 0.5 | |||||
| Dublin | |||||||||
| RTÉ Radio 1 | 29 | 32.2 | 29 | 32.0 | 27 | 29.2 | |||
| FM104 | 19 | 9.7 | 20 | 11.5 | 20 | 13.7 | |||
| Dublin’s 98 | 14 | 10.9 | 15 | 10.9 | 16 | 12.2 | |||
| Spin 1038 | 14 | 6.3 | 14 | 6.5 | 13 | 6.2 | |||
| Q102 | 13 | 10.3 | 12 | 8.1 | 10 | 6.8 | |||
| RTÉ 2FM | 12 | 8.1 | 12 | 9.2 | 12 | 10.7 | |||
| Newstalk 106-108FM | 10 | 6.0 | 12 | 7.4 | 11 | 7.1 | |||
| Today FM | 10 | 6.7 | 9 | 6.2 | 10 | 6.7 | |||
| RTÉ Lyric FM | 5 | 3.0 | 6 | 2.8 | 6 | 3.0 | |||
| Country Mix 106.8FM | 4 | 3.3 | 4 | 2.6 | 3 | 2.5 | |||
| Phantom 105.2 | 3 | 1.1 | 3 | 1.7 | 3 | 1.3 | |||
| Cork | |||||||||
| Cork’s 96FM/C103 | 48 | 43.3 | 49 | 45.2 | 48 | 50.7 | |||
| Cork’s 96FM | 38 | 33.2 | 38 | 34.0 | 36 | 37.2 | |||
| RTÉ Radio 1 | 25 | 20.7 | 25 | 21.3 | 22 | 18.2 | |||
| Cork’s Red FM | 20 | 10.4 | 21 | 10.5 | 17 | 10.8 | |||
| Today FM | 16 | 11.0 | 18 | 11.9 | 14 | 9.7 | |||
| C103 | 14 | 10.2 | 14 | 11.3 | 14 | 13.5 | |||
| RTÉ 2FM | 10 | 5.5 | 10 | 5.7 | 9 | 5.6 | |||
| Newstalk 106-108FM | 9 | 4.0 | 6 | 2.5 | 5 | 2.3 | |||
| RTÉ Lyric FM | 4 | 1.7 | 3 | 1.3 | 3 | 1.7 |
If you had to take something from the topline it would be the decline, again, of 2FM in all areas.
