Ryan’s radio audience had fallen below 300,000

RTÉ Radio last night paid tribute to the late Gerry Ryan as the latest listenership figures showed he remained a popular host even though his audience fell below 300,000 for the first time in many years.

The average number of listeners to Ryan’s daily morning programme declined by 10,000 over the past year to 296,000.

The results are the last full yearly figure for the three-hour weekday show which Ryan hosted since 1988 until his shock death earlier this month at the age of 53.

RTÉ Radio’s managing director, Clare Duignan, last night paid tribute to Ryan as host of 2FM’s flagship programme for retaining his position as one of the most popular broadcasters in Irish radio.

“Obviously Gerry Ryan is very much in our thoughts today. Not only has Gerry remained No 1 with 20 to 44-year-olds but it is a fitting tribute that in a set of results that sees fewer listening to radio overall on weekdays, Gerry Ryan retained his position in the top 10 most-listened-to programmes in Ireland,” said Ms Duignan.

Ryan had just retained his place in the top 10 in the final position, although he remained 52,000 ahead of Drivetime with Mary Wilson in 11th place.

RTÉ sources have acknowledged that 2FM will find it hard to maintain the size of the audience held by Ryan, despite the fact that the numbers tuning in to his programme have been in steady decline in recent years.

There was further bad news for 2FM as its morning show hosted by Colm and Jim Jim dropped by over 21% to 150,000.

Elsewhere, the JNLR figures showed that overall radio audiences are falling for a majority of programmes on national stations compared to the previous results published last February

Nevertheless RTÉ Radio One turned in another impressive performance with many leading broadcasters including Ryan Tubridy, Pat Kenny and Marian Finucane recording growth in audience figures.

Finucane saw the number of listeners to her Saturday show jump by over 6% to 382,000, while her Sunday programme was up 10% to 341,000.

Tubridy, whose profile has grown as presenter of The Late Late Show, has attracted 19,000 new listeners over the past year to reach 352,000 for his early morning show, while Today with Pat Kenny’s audience is up 7,000 to 330,000.

However, most of the main programmes on Radio One lost audiences over the past three months – a sign that there is a falling-off among radio listeners in recent months, particularly for morning and evening drivetime programmes.

The popular news and current affairs programmes, Morning Ireland and News at One, were the only two main shows on Radio One to lose listeners over the past year.

Meanwhile, Today FM suffered a further decline in listenership with some of its top stars including Ian Dempsey and Matt Cooper recording double-digit percentage declines.

Dempsey lost 39,000 listeners over the past year, while The Last Word hosted by Cooper has shed 24,000 listeners. However, Today FM’s Ray Foley bucked the trend by recording almost a 4% increase in listeners to 163,000.

Newstalk 106-108FM fared somewhat better than its national rivals with most of its main broadcasters increasing their audience size with the exception of Tom Dunne.

The Breakfast Show hosted by Claire Byrne and Ivan Yates now attracts regular audiences of 76,000 – up 4,000, while The Right Hook with George Hook has added 15,000 new listeners to reach 118,000.

However, Newstalk’s figures still show a decline on the results from three months ago.

FM104 remains the top station in the crowded Dublin market ahead of 98FM and Spin 103.8FM.

In Cork, Red FM recorded an increase in its overall audience size largely at the expense of 96FM/C103.