New RTÉ Radio 1 boss tasked with halting the slide in big-name listenership
The Sheffield-born woman will also be acutely aware that she will be expected to halt a downward slide in audiences for the vast majority of the station’s daytime programmes.
This week’s JNLR figures which measure performance during 2005 revealed that many of the big names in Radio 1, including Pat Kenny and Joe Duffy, as well as its news and current affairs programmes (with the notable exception of Morning Ireland), suffered further slippages in listenership. They also provided little comfort for Leddy’s 2FM counterpart John Clarke, as the station’s flagship programme hosted by Gerry Ryan saw its audience decline by more than 13% to 331,000.
It also meant Ryan lost his long-held position as presenter of the second-most popular programme on Irish radio (after Morning Ireland) to one of RTÉ’s youngest presenters, Ryan Tubridy.
2FM’s attempts to replace Tubridy in the problematic morning slot following his departure from the Full Irish show to Radio 1 have not been entirely successful. Initial replacements Ruth Scott and Rick O’Shea were shafted with undue haste after a few months and Marty Whelan’s return to the schedule has still seen audiences in the 7-9am slot fall by 26,000.
The latest JNLR figures suggest the main problem for Radio 1 and 2FM is that their listeners, like their main presenters, are part of an ageing demographic.
Although highly regarded professionals, broadcasters like Marty Whelan, Gerry Ryan, Larry Gogan and Dave Fanning are considerably older than their target audience - the 15-35 market so beloved of advertisers.
Not surprisingly, the two stations are losing ground in the competitive Dublin market where more youth-orientated stations like Spin FM continue to grow their fan base.
However, 43% of the national audience will still tune in to one of the RTÉ stations, including Lyric FM, at some stage during the day.
Radio 1 and 2FM between them still account for 18 of the top 20 radio programmes in the country, with only Today FM’s Ray D’Arcy and Ian Dempsey breaking into that chart.
Following her switch from a prime time weekday morning show, RTÉ management was pleased with the first listenership figures for Marian Finucane’s two weekend shows which stand at 238,000 for Saturdays and 211,000 for Sundays.
Combined with impressive figures of 279,000 for Playback and 257,000 for Mooney Goes Wild, the Saturday morning schedule is one of the few genuine success stories in RTÉ at the moment.
Elsewhere, Today FM will be delighted that its two star presenters, Ian Dempsey and Ray D’Arcy both saw their audiences climb to more than 200,000, while The Last Word with Matt Cooper halted a fall-off in listenership that had affected the programme since the time it was hosted by Eamon Dunphy.
The controversial soccer pundit/broadcaster also received a major boost with his breakfast show audience on Dublin’s Newstalk 106 FM jumping from 16,000 to 25,000, while his colleague George Hook almost doubled his audience to attract 35,000 listeners to his Right Hook drive-time show.
The figures augur well for Newstalk’s ambitions to have a national licence before the end of 2006.
Meanwhile, local and regional stations remain more popular than the national broadcaster within their own catchment areas.
Overall, the radio market in Ireland remains remarkably robust. The latest JNLR figures show that audiences listen to 3.5 hours of daytime radio on a daily average.
Not bad for a cash-rich, time-poor nation.
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