RTE remains the single dominant force in Irish radio, with the vast bulk of the Top 10 most listened to shows emanating from Montrose. There was further good news for RTE, with Mary Wilson regaining the No.1 spot in the Drivetime battle from Today FM's Matt Cooper and Gerry Ryan's flagship 2FM show adding 14,000 listeners, confirming his rating as the No.1 programme for 20 to 44 year olds. Another big winner is Marian Finnucane – whose show recently made headlines, following the live on-air announcement from the late Nuala O Faolain, in an interview with Marian, that she was suffering from incurable cancer. Both of Marian Finnucane's programmes are now in the Top 10 shows

RTÉ Radio 1’s Mooney Show has gone into the Top 20 at number 16.

Other new entries to the Top 20 include RTÉ 2fm’s Michael Cahill (17th) and RTÉ Radio 1’s Sunday Miscellany (18th). RTÉ Radio now broadcasts 9 of the Top 10 – Ray d'Arcy of Today FM is the sole interloper – and 17 of the Top 20 national radio programmes.

Adrian Moynes, Managing Director of RTÉ Radio, was understandably pleased with the results. “We are delighted that recent strategic schedule changes are delivering clear results," he told Hot Press. "We’ve grown our audience in real terms. RTÉ Radio 1 now has over 800,000 weekday listeners and RTÉ 2fm has over 600,000. This is very significant because since the last book the overall population is unchanged.”

Among the independent stations, East Coast Radio are one of the big winners with an increase of over 10% in their listened yesterday figure. Also performing well are Spin South West, who delivered another excellent result with 61,000 people having "listened yesterday" (15% of their franchise area) and Red FM – who improved their quarter hourly listenership figures by 5%.

For further RTE listenership developments, click here
For Listened Yesterday figures for DUBLIN AREA ONLY click here