Cork radio ever popular but flagship RTÉ Radio One shows shed listeners
Ray Foley continues to grow his appeal after moving to Today FM from Cork's Red FM, adding 6,000 listeners.
Cork radio stations saw their listenership grow in the most recent Joint National Listenership Research (JLNR) report, while nationally, RTÉ Radio One saw listenership plummet for some flagship programmes.
RTÉ Radio One’s saw listenership grow by 1,000 listeners since last year to 451,000 daily listeners, maintaining its place as Ireland’s most listened-to morning show.
But other shows experienced significant year-on-year losses.
dropped 25,000 listeners, falling to 321,000 daily listeners and Ray D’Arcy dropped 31,000 listeners, falling to 179,000 daily listeners.
Ryan Tubridy’s mid-morning show lost 15,000 daily listeners from the previous year, dropping to 344,000 daily listeners.
The latest JNLR results for the period October ’21-September ’22 showed Today FM maintain its 9.1% market share (a 10-year high) with Ray Foley and Ian Dempsey, in particular, hitting the high notes with listeners. The results see Today FM retain its status as the number one commercial radio station in Ireland and widening the gap with its national counterpart on market share.
Ray Foley continues to grow his appeal, adding 6,000 listeners in the last three months bringing his audience to 149,000 — the highest ever for Today FM in this time slot.
Ian Dempsey retained his place at the top of the breakfast table as his 199,000-strong audience cements his number one position as the most listened to show on commercial radio. Some 75,000 more listeners choose to spend their morning with Mr Dempsey on Today FM compared to his 2FM breakfast counterparts.
Elsewhere on the Today FM schedule, there were single-digit drops at mid-morning and lunchtime for Dermot & Dave (-5,000) and Pamela Joyce (-4,000) respectively and while The Last Word with Matt Cooper saw a decline of 10,000 to 164,000.
Meanwhile, Newstalk recorded 784,000 weekly listeners, an increase of 17,000. It retained a national prime-time market share of 7.1%.
with Ciara Kelly and Shane Coleman achieved an all time-high of 147,000 listeners.
Newstalk is the number one talk station nationally for 20- to 44-year-olds.
Other shows to see increases include with Sean Moncrieff, growing its audience to 90,000 listeners, while with Kieran Cuddihy increased its audience to 156,000 listeners.
Cork’s Red FM retained its place as Cork’s most listened-to local radio station, with 129,000 daily listeners — 21,000 more than its nearest competitor.
retained its place as Cork’s most-listened-to mid-morning talk show, despite a slight drop in listenership to 76,000 daily listeners.
Red FM programme manager Dave MacArdle said the new figures were good news for all Cork radio stations.
“Cork radio in the Cork market wins hands down. If you were to combine Red FM, 96FM, C103 — who have done very well over the last couple of years — if you look across those three stations in Cork we absolutely dominate the radio market.
“Certainly 50% more people here listen to Cork breakfast stations than listen to any of the national stations.”
96FMs breakfast show, retained its lead as Cork’s most listened-to breakfast show with 53,000 daily listeners.
That is a growth of 4,000 listeners from 48,000 last year. It is the same number of people in Cork who listen to on RTÉ Radio One, group station director of Cork’s 96FM and C103 Kieran McGeary said.
Listenership growth was also noted on 96FMs with PJ Coogan, which grew from 66,000 daily listeners last year to 67,000 daily listeners this year.
The afternoon programme with Simon Murdoch also saw growth from 57,000 listeners last year to 69,000 daily listeners this year.
