Kenny leads the slide as RTÉ loses more listeners

RADIO audiences are continuing to switch off RTÉ.

Big name presenters and prime time programmes at the national broadcaster have been hit with several slides in succession. Their chief rival Today FM enjoys growing audiences.

Pat Kenny suffered the greatest slump, losing 12% of his listeners compared to this time last year. The bad news for RTÉ continued with losses for Ryan Tubridy and Gerry Ryan as well as key slots like the Breakfast Show, Morning Ireland and Drive Time.

Joe Duffy and Marian Finucane saved face for the broadcaster. Duffy held his own with a year-on-year increase of 2.8% in the size of the audience for his Liveline show and Finucane going strong in her weekend slots.

But the 12-month comparisons hide a slip from the last release of figures three months ago when Duffy had a total of 333,000 listeners compared to 332,000 now, and Finucane had a two-day total of 538,000 compared to 509,000 now.

The JNLR report will be disappointing for RTÉ, which last year took drastic action in swapping around shows and presenters in a bid to beat the slide, but the broadcaster said the figures did not diminish its status as the most-listened to in the country.

“RTÉ Radio has more than 1.3 million listeners every weekday and I am looking forward to the August book which will give us a fuller picture of the impact of schedule changes on both RTÉ Radio 1 and RTÉ 2fm,” said head of Radio 1 Ana Leddy.

The broadcaster pointed out that Morning Ireland, despite losing listeners, remained far and away the top breakfast show in the country, attracting almost double the listeners tuning in at the same time to Today FM and almost 10 times those opting for NewsTalk.

A proper comparison with NewsTalk is not possible, however, as the station has only been airing nationwide for the last six months. Its much-promoted breakfast show, co-presented by Claire Byrne and Ger Gilroy, is attracting 48,000 listeners.

NewsTalk’s star performer is drivetime host and RTÉ rugby pundit George Hook, who is pulling in 88,000 listeners — 35,000 more than his next most popular presenter at the station, afternoon show host Sean Moncrieff.

Today FM found most to celebrate in the figures with all of its top presenters gaining audiences, although RTÉ disputed the station’s claim to have conquered the drivetime slot with Matt Cooper’s The Last Word.

Cooper, who airs from 4.30-7pm, has 187,000 listeners, compared to the 180,000 who tune into Drive Time on RTÉ 1 between 5-8pm but the national broadcaster insisted yesterday its figures were stronger during the key 5-7pm period.

The biggest winner at Today FM was Ray D’Arcy, who boosted his listenership by 10%, narrowing the gap on Ryan Tubridy.