Conall O Móráin: Don't broadcast it, but the radio industry's JNLRs don't add up

A finding from a survey is that nearly half of US teens say they use the internet 'almost constantly'. As is likely, if Irish teens mirror this behaviour, I struggle to understand when they find the time to listen to the radio as claimed by the JNLR, says Conall O Móráin

The JNLR numbers have no meaning. They are an aggregation, an addition, of those people who say they listen during the period of the show.

Once a quarter the radio industry publishes the Joint National Listenership Research, the JNLRs, that are the sector league tables. 

Always eagerly anticipated, they provide great newspaper copy, pitching well-known radio personalities against each other, in a faux listening war. Each quarter of the year, every station claims a victory.