Finucane leads way in battle for listeners

WITH 437,000 listeners, Morning Ireland is the most popular programme on Irish radio, according to a national survey.

RTÉ’s Drivetime programme, hosted by Mary Wilson, has seen its audience grow by 16,000 listeners to 223,000 in the battle of the radio bands.

The programme has pipped The Last Word with Matt Cooper on Today FM for pole position, according to the latest Joint National Listenership Research (JNLR) survey.

The results indicate that 84% of the adults were listening daily to a mix of national, regional and local radio throughout the country.

Gerry Ryan recorded some of the most impressive gains with his morning programme on 2FM adding 14,000, giving a total audience of 342,000.

On Newstalk, George Hook’s teatime show increased its audience from 94,000 to 97,000 in the April 2007-March 2008 period covered by the survey.

RTÉ Radio 1’s Mooney Show has gone into the top 20 at number 16 with an increase of 13,000 listeners.

The Marian Finucane Show continues its phenomenal growth with both her Saturday and Sunday programmes in the top 10.

Liveline with Joe Duffy with 363,000 listeners came in at number two, and News at One, with an audience of 307,000 was number five.

Despite the national broadcaster’s strong results overall, Ryan Tubridy and Pat Kenny lost listeners, with decreases of 4,000 and 6,000 respectively.

Larry Gogan made gains on both Saturday, up 8,000 to 134,000 and Sunday, up 13,000 to 128,000 on RTÉ 2FM.

And RTÉ LyricFM is growing its audience on Sunday evenings with Gay Byrne’s Sunday Serenade and Jazz Alley making gains.

Managing director of RTÉ Radio, Adrian Moynes said: “We are delighted that recent strategic schedule changes are delivering clear results. We’ve grown our audience in real terms. RTÉ Radio 1 now has over 800,000 weekday listeners and RTÉ 2FM has over 600,000. This is very significant because since the last book the overall population is unchanged.”

There were no changes to the national listenership figures when compared with the previous survey period. Listenership to any regional/local radio was at 52%.

The reach figures for the various national public service stations were 23% for RTÉ Radio 1, 17% for RTÉ 2FM, while RTÉ Lyric FM retained its reach of 3%. The national commercial broadcasters Today FM and Newstalk 106-108FM, maintained their listener yesterday figures of 16% and 6% respectively.

In the Cork franchise area, the combined services of Cork’s 96FM/C103 achieved a reach figure of 48% (+3) while market share decreased to 49.8% (-2.4).

The Ian Dempsey Breakfast Show is the most popular breakfast show amongst 20-44 year olds, with 240,000 listeners, an increase of 7,000.

The Ray D’Arcy Show now has 252,000 listeners, up 4,000 on last year.