The latest JNLR report for the Irish radio sector, shows that the daily radio audience has grown by 31,000 listeners to 3.35m while 92% of the adult population and 88% of those aged between 15-34 listen to a radio station every week.
Carried out by Ipsos, the latest JNLR report covers the period October 2022 to September 2023.
According to Radiocentre Ireland, once again, listening levels to local and regional radio continues to be very strong with almost 2.2m adults tuning in every weekday.
The latest daily audience levels of 3.35 million represents an increase in 176,000 listeners on an average weekday, when compared to the same period 2 years ago (October 2020 – October 2021).
“Live radio continues to deliver brilliant content that is consumed by millions of listeners every day. A record high in daily listeners is a testament to the quality of radio in Ireland and to the hard work and investment from radio stations up and down the country,” says Ciaran Cunningham, CEO, Radiocentre Ireland.
“There is a general boom in audio listening and live radio is at the heart of it, accounting for three quarters of all audio listening in Ireland,” he adds.
From the individual broadcaster’s perspective, the latest JNLR book throws up some interesting developments and trends both at national, regional and local level.
RTÉ
According to the latest JNLR book, RTÉ’s combined radio services reach 1.99m listeners, or 48% of the Adult 15+ population, every week. It also boasts 16 of the top 20 Irish radio programmes with Morning Ireland holding on to its billing as Ireland’s most listened to radio programme with 463,000 listeners, an increase of 23,000 listeners book-on-book.
In the post-Tubridy era, the Nine O’Clock Show had 347,000 listeners each weekday, an increase of 13,000 listeners.
The JNLR also shows that RTÉ Radio 1 is the only station with a weekly reach of over 1m people while RTÉ 2FM has a weekly reach figure of 727,000. Elsewhere RTÉ lyric fm has 313,000 weekly listeners.
Over at 2FM Breakfast with Doireann, Donncha, and Carl has 149,000 listeners tuning in on weekday mornings, an increase of 11,000 while Drive It with The 2 Johnnies ended the period up 11,000 at 151,000 listeners.
Elsewhere, Jennifer Zamparelli gained 3,000 listeners for her mid-morning slot ending the period with 136,000 Tracy Clifford added 6,000 listeners to take her audience in the afternoon slot to 113,000.
Healy, Head of RTÉ Radio Strategy and RTÉ 2FM: “2FM continues to grow audiences right across the seven days of our schedule. We have seen our share of 15 to 34 olds increase to 12.4% for this period off the back of excellent performances during the weekday for Doireann, Donncha, and Carl, Jennifer Zamparelli, Tracy Clifford and The 2 Johnnies.
“In every radio market morning radio is the vital battle ground for radio stations, and I am thrilled for the entire Breakfast team for their continuous success with the show, which is up 11,000 listeners from the last survey. The 2 Johnnies are also up 11,000 listeners and have become a real appointment to listen, delivering a strong back end of the day for 2FM.”
Bauer Media Audio Ireland
Following a period of expansion, the latest JNLR book shows that stations owned by Bauer Media Audio have a combined weekly reach of 1.98m while daily listeners amounted to 1.28m, an increase on the last JNLR book.
For its part, Today FM has a daily listenership of 515,000, an increase of 15,000 book-on-book, while its weekly reach has grown by 21,000 to 959,000.
Key highlights of Today FM’s performance include The Last Word with Matt Cooper increasing his listenership by 7,000 book-on-book to 182,000 while Ian Dempsey’s Breakfast Show now has a listenership of 225,000, an increase of 4,000.
Eleswhere within the Bauer stable, Newstalk has grown its daily audience by 27,000 to 466,000 while its weekly reach has grown by 24,000 to 822,000. According to the JNLR, Newstalk has an all-time high national prime-time market share of 7.6% and 11.4% in Dublin.
Newstalk’s flagship programme, The Pat Kenny Show has 205,000 daily listeners according to the latest book, an increase of 25,000. Lunchtime Live, meanwhile, which is hosted by Andrea Gilligan has also made some gains, rising by 5,000 listeners to end the period with 107,000 listeners while Sean Moncrieff’s afternoon slot picked up 7,000 listeners to hit 110,000.
Bauer Media Audio’s other stations also fared well in the latest JNLR book. In Dublin, SPIN 1038, for example, is the most listened to music station on weekly basis with 267,000 listeners while 98FM increased its weekly listenership to 182,000, an increase of 2,000. SPIN South West, meanwhile, has increased its market share to 12.6% and maintains its position of biggest station in the region across weekly and daily reach.
In Cork, Red FM – Bauer Media’s most recent acquisition- is the most listened to station on daily and weekly reach Cork’s 96FM winning on market share. Neil Prendeville’s mid-morning show is also the most listened to show in the reg The latest IPSOS/ MRBI JNLR survey shows that 92% of the 15+ population tune into a radio station on a weekly basis. This figure has increased book-on-book meaning nearly 3.8 million people consume the medium on a weekly basis.
According to James Brownlow, Managing Editor, Music & Entertainment at Bauer Media Audio Ireland: “This is a brilliant set of results for Bauer. Our teams work so hard to deliver in-class content and it is great to see their efforts being recognised. Congratulations to the Today FM team for a truly magnificent set of figures, in touch of the million mark and dominating audiences as they have in the last year is a fantastic accomplishment. Along with significant growth or market leading positions from our other brands across Ireland has contributed to outstanding growth for Bauer Media in this survey.”
Chris Doyle interim CEO adds: “A huge thanks to all the team across Bauer for their dedication and creativity. The hard work and passion are connecting us with loyal audiences across Ireland and setting new records. It is fantastic to see Today FM and Newstalk achieving all-time highs in the latest results”.
Wireless Ireland
The latest JNLR was also a boost for Wireless Ireland giving it a strong position in the markets in which it operates. This includes the key Dublin market with FM104 delivering 7.6% primetime market share and Q102 with 5.3% for a combined 12.9% total of that market.
Meanwhile 96FM and C103 delivers a combined 35.4% market share in Cork, Live 95 built on its recent successes with a 28.4% share in Limerick, while LMFM completes a strong performance from our Wireless Ireland portfolio with a 31.7% primetime share in the North East.
Reach has also increased across the group with Wireless now delivering 19.3% of the national market on a weekly basis. This increased radio listening is complemented by increases in our digital audio output such as, increased listening hours for talkSPORT Ireland and record breaking downloads for The Kinahans podcast.
Commenting on the results, Sean Barry, Managing Director of Wireless Ireland: “We’re delighted with the latest set of listenership figures as we look forward to building our audience further into the future. Our performance in Dublin is particularly pleasing with growth in market share of 2% since last year, taking our combined Dublin primetime share to 12.9%. These results also confirm that many new listeners joined our group of stations in the last year which is also pleasing. Our mix of great music, entertainment and relevant local content resonates strongly with our audiences.
The continued growth across radio, digital audio, web and social media is testament to the hard work and dedication of all our teams across Wireless Ireland.”
