As the dust settles on yesterday’s JNLR figures, it’s clear that it’s been a very good book for Today FM’s Matt Cooper and The Last Word who’ve upped their listenership by 7,000 to 139,000
“After a very brief blip it’s good to see that The Last Word has re-established its long standing position with Irish radio listeners as the most popular late afternoon alternative to RTÉ,” Cooper reflects.
His big Newstalk rival George Hook has dropped 4,000 to 132,000 since the last quarterly book.
Overall, though, Today FM has lost 47,000 listeners in 12 months, which will doubtless be of concern to Denis O’Brien and his Communicorp colleagues.
The news isn’t good either at 2fm where daily listenership has fallen over the past year by 58,000 to 146,000.
Since the last JNLRs, Breakfast Republic has shed 11,000 listeners to bring in a current 151,000. Nicky Byrne and Jenny Greene are down 7,000 to 136,000.
There’s some solace, though, for 2fm head honcho Dan Healy with Eoghan McDermott up slightly on drive and Will Leahy’s weekend show adding 5,000 listeners. The Limerick-based DJ tweeted the news himself, noting that, “Weekend shows get zero press…”
Healy also points to a growth in the station’s primetime market share, up from 5.7% to 6.4% over the past six months.
RTÉ Radio 1 still has a whopping weekly reach of 1.3 million-plus while it’s pretty much as you are at Lyric FM where 289,000 people listen weekly.
It’s another whopper book for Marian Finucane who’s up 7,000 to 400,000.
Claire Byrne is doing well on Saturdays where she’s up 6,000 to 244,000.
Morning Ireland has dropped 16,000 but has still has a massive 449,000 audience.
Since transferring from 2fm, Ryan Tubridy has brought in a very solid 319,000 weekday listeners while Ray D’Arcy has an audience of 211,000.
“The latest JNLR figures confirm that RTÉ’s radio services continue to thrive with one in three adults 15+ tuning in to our stations on a daily basis,” says an upbeat MD of RTÉ Radio, Jim Jennings. “Radio 1 continues to lead the daytime schedule with 18 out of the top 20 programmes.”
Back at Newstalk, Pat Kenny is up 5,000 to 131,000 with 380,000 listeners tuning in daily.
As usual, pretty much everyone in Dublin is claiming to be a winner. FM104 can be justifiably proud of its breakfast show being up 4,000 to 80,000. With an 11.4% overall market share, they remain the second most listened-to station in the capital.
after Radio 1. The Dublin local pecking order is now them followed by 98FM 6.9%, Spin 1038 6.1%, Q102 5.9%, Sunshine 106.8 5.2%, Radio Nova 3.7%, Classic Hits 4FM 2.3% and TXFM 0.7%, which sadly explains why they’re soon to close. Incidentally, Hot Press is delighted that one of the star TX turns, Claire Beck, has been given a Saturday 6pm-9pm show on parent station Today FM.
Going around the country, RedFM continues to outperform its rivals in Cork with 118,000 daily listeners while champagne corks popped at WLR in Waterford who are up 4,000 across the day.
The fly in Red’s ointment is that 96FM’s PJ Coogan is winning the battle of the chat shows with 61,000 listeners as opposed to Neil Prendeville’s 55,000.
Needless to say, 96FM and Red are both claiming to be the victors as you'll see below...