National radio audience drops 3%

LATEST JNLR figures show local and regional radio stations have won over an extra 75,000 listeners, while national radio stations have suffered a 3% drop in overall audience reach.

The figures measure the total number of over-15-year-olds who listened to radio at any time on the average weekday during the six-month period of October 2003 to March 2004, compared to the same period in the previous year.

While the figures showed overall radio listenership was up slightly from 86% to 87%, those listening to RTÉ’s three commercial stations and Today FM fell by 3%.

National listenership to RTÉ Radio 1, 2FM and Lyric FM was down from 50% to 46%. Radio 1 dropped from 28% to 26%, 2FM was down from 26% to 24% and Lyric FM remained at 3%, but attracted an extra 2,000 listeners.

Today FM dropped from 15% to 13% nationally, but still holds on to a significant 414,000 listeners.

With almost 1.5 million listeners, the national broadcaster continues to dominate the national airwaves.

“We’re particularly happy that Radio 1’s performance in Cork has gone up from 22-25%,” Jennifer Taaffe of RTÉ said. Around 13,000 more listeners in Cork tuned into Radio 1, increasing the total audience reach in Cork from 75,000 to 88,000.

Newcomer Beat FM in Waterford accounted for a significant 17% of radio listeners in the south-east, with 58,000 listeners, compared to 90,000 who tuned to 2FM in the south-east.

Newstalk also increased its reach to 5% and now has 43,000 listeners in Dublin. Today FM was the only station to increase its overall reach in Cork, with Red FM, 96FM and 2FM experiencing relatively small drops in overall percentage of reach.