RTÉ assures advertisers it can fight off competition

RTÉ has assured advertisers it can fight off growing competition, as listenership figures show further slides in the popularity of key radio programmes.

At a private dinner last Thursday, the day the JNLR figures came out, chairperson of the RTÉ Authority, Mary Finan, told over 200 advertising industry representatives that RTÉ accepted the reality of increasing rivalry from independent stations and was up to the challenge they presented.

Ms Finan told the gathering in the Four Seasons Hotel in Dublin that the station was cognisant of a more commercial marketplace but was confident it could continue to achieve commercial success, without neglecting its responsibilities as a public service broadcaster.

The dinner, an annual event, was arranged before the release of the latest JNLR figures.

Ms Finan took over the chair of the RTÉ Authority at the start of a year which has seen major changes in RTÉ Radio 1. The station was a loss-maker in 2005, despite an overall surplus for RTÉ, and it went through a scheduling shake-up at the start of the autumn.

The impact of schedule changes — which saw the replacement of programmes like 5-7 Live, Rattlebag and the Mystery Train, and new time slots for presenters like John Creedon, Derek Mooney, Ronan Collins and Dave Fanning — has yet to be measured, as the JNLR figures only cover the period up to September.

Flagship programmes like Morning Ireland, the News at One, Today with Pat Kenny, the Tubridy Show and Tonight with Vincent Browne, all suffered audience slumps most, in the second successive listenership survey.

Advertising industry expert, Stuart Fogarty of AFA O’Meara, however, said it was inevitable that the station would lose listeners because of the growth in the independent sector and the granting of a national licence to Newstalk 106.

“The independent stations are going to chip away at RTÉ’s audiences. RTÉ has always been dominant in the market but that market has changed dramatically and is continuing to change and when you’re at the top, the only place to go is down.”

Mr Fogarty said RTÉ Radio 1 revenues would be hit by the latest JNLR figures, as advertisers would negotiate a reduced rate for airtime on programmes that had lost listeners, but he said the latest fall-off in audiences was not very serious.

“The slide in RTÉ has been relatively small given that the programmes still have a much larger audience than rival stations and, in fairness, RTÉ has seen this coming and they have tried to adjust their schedules to deal with it.”

The next JNLR figures, due out early in the new year, are eagerly awaited as they will reveal how the new RTÉ Radio 1 schedule is shaping up and how far Newstalk has been able to extend its reach beyond its original Dublin base.

They will also show how Newstalk has coped with the loss of its biggest name, Eamon Dunphy, who left the breakfast show at the end of the summer.