Radio 1 loses out as listeners stop tuning in

RTÉ Radio 1 has emerged as the clear loser in the latest Joint National Listenership Research figures which showed all the station’s main programmes dropping audience numbers.

While Radio 1 maintained its leading position in the national radio market, its top presenters, including Marian Finucane, Pat Kenny and Joe Duffy, all recorded a sizeable fall-off in listenership over the past year.

Each of the station's main daytime programmes lost a significant number of listeners, according to the JNLR figures for July 2002-June 2003 published yesterday.

Although Morning Ireland remains the country's most popular radio show with 480,000 listeners, it also recorded a drop in its average audience of 46,000. The Marian Finucane Show has been replaced as the nation's second favourite radio programme by 2FM's Gerry Ryan, who attracted an extra 7,000 listeners in the past year to reach a record 381,000 audience. Finucane's average audience size fell to 376,000 a drop of 40,000.

On a national basis, Radio 1's average weekday listenership fell by 3% to 28%, while 2FM fared little better with its reach falling by 1% to 26% nationally. Lyric FM also recorded a 1% decrease to 3% of the national audience.

Reacting to the figures, RTÉ's managing director of radio Adrian Moynes acknowledged there were some worrying trends for all radio stations.

Although RTÉ's daytime programmes recorded drops in listenership, Mr Moynes said they remained the most popular programmes on Irish radio. "RTÉ has held its position in a market which offers more choice and so puts audience loyalty under pressure," he added.

Overall, the latest JNLR figures highlight the increasing fragmentation of radio audiences and strong competition between the various stations. They also show the continuing buoyancy of local stations which recorded average listenership figures of 53% almost twice that of Radio 1.

Today FM maintained its position of 16% from last year, although listenership figures for presenters Ian Dempsey (+3%) and Ray D'Arcy (+12%) showed a steady increase.

In the crucial battle for drivetime audiences, RTÉ's 5-7 Live increased its gap over its Today FM rival, The Last Word, by 12,000 listeners. However, both programmes recorded a drop in average audience sizes. 5-7 Live lost 3,000 listeners to attain an average audience of 210,000. The Last Word suffered a sharper decline with the audience size falling by 15,000 to 162,000 a decrease of 8%. Nevertheless, the figure will be seen as a respectable performance by the programme's presenter, Matt Cooper who replaced Eamon Dunphy as the Last Word anchor at the start of the year.

In the highly competitive Dublin market, 98FM replaced its close rival FM104, as the leading music station, increasing its "listened yesterday" figure to 22% a 3% increase. FM104's audience fell 2% to 19%. They were followed by 2FM (17%), Today FM (12%) and Lite (10%). The city's two newest music stations, Spin 103.8 and Country 106.8 are still struggling to make an impact with average audience figures of 4% and 2% respectively.

In Cork, Red FM held it's own at 18% while its main local rival, 96FM County Sound suffered a 7% drop in its listnership figures

Among the local stations, Donegal's Highland Radio and Mayo's Mid-West Radio remain the most popular with their respective audience figures of 73% and 71%.