RTÉ Radio 1 has continued to dominate listenership figures with the latest raft of data revealing the station broadcasts 18 of the top 20 shows in Ireland, and all of the top 10.
JNLR (Joint National Listenership Research) figures on Thursday also highlight how four separate shows broadcast by the station breached the 400,000 listener mark for the first time over the last three months, with some of its flagship programmes recording significant year-on-year growth.
The station expressed satisfaction at how a dramatic recent scheduling revamp has been performing. However, it is still early days and the new shows have yet to go toe-to-toe in ratings with the Newstalk overhaul which sees Claire Byrne challenging David McCullagh in the morning slot and Ciara Kelly and Shane Coleman taking on Drivetime in the evenings.
With much anticipation around Claire Byrne’s recent defection to Newstalk, ratings for her new show will not be available until the next JNLR release.
Its latest figures cover the first five weeks of RTÉ Radio 1’s new schedule and year-on-year comparisons for some shows is not possible as they are now in different time slots.
Morning Ireland retained its grip on the top rank with 467,000 listeners, down 4,000 over the last three months but up 1,000 year-on-year.
The number two position has changed hands on many occasions over recent years and there is a new entrant with McCullagh’s show from 9am-11am attracting 440,000 listeners. Oliver Callan’s show in the new time slot of 11am to 1pm has brought in 308,000 listeners.
Liveline host Kieran Cuddihy. Photograph: RTÉ
The News at One had 279,000 listeners while Liveline was on 280,000, with Kieran Cuddihy’s recent arrival seeing a boost of 10,000 listeners. Louise Duffy had 158,000 listeners, while Drivetime was on 218,000.
One of the big stories contained in the new figures is the success of Brendan O’Connor’s Saturday show with a listenership of 429,000 and a year-on-year increase of 71,000 described by RTÉ insiders as a “phenomenal” story.
His Sunday show, meanwhile, had 418,000 while Miriam O’Callaghan’s listenership was 341,000, up 37,000 year-on-year.
Playback, broadcast on Saturdays, has 349,000 listeners, up 30,000 year-on-year, while The Business, on Saturday mornings, has 370,000 listeners, an uplift of 42,000 compared with last year.
RTÉ Lyric FM continues to show exceptional growth with audiences and has once again increased its share to an all-time high of 3.1 per cent, up from 2.6 per cent making it the only national station to achieve such growth over the last 12 months.
One of the keys to its success is veteran broadcaster Marty Whelan who steers the ship in the early part of the day going toe-to-toe with Morning Ireland.
“There is a lot of bad news in the mornings and we are the opposite. We don’t avoid talking about the bad news stories but I am a very upbeat person and have a very positive attitude and we will play music that is 100 years old and then something from CMAT or we will go from Bruce Springsteen to Bellini.”
He also pointed to a sense of community the station has created. “We’re not just playing the tunes, we’re out there with people and I love that.”
Kieran Cuddihy was upbeat about the increase in the figures for Liveline but stressed that it was still early days.
“I think it will take a year for things to wash through but you don’t want the first JNLRs that are published after you start the job, even if you’ve only just started, to be ones that went down,” he told The Irish Times.
He said he was enjoying his role as the master of the nation’s soapbox and he commended his production team and the advance preparation that goes into each broadcast while noting that the nature of the programme meant it could always go off in an unexpected tangent at the drop of a hat.
“The new Radio 1 schedule is all about delivering for the audience, and this book shows that RTÉ Radio 1 is delivering across seven days and a wide variety of genres,” said RTÉ’s director of audio Patricia Monahan.
Away from RTÉ, Ian Dempsey’s Breakfast Show on Today FM was the best performer finishing in 15th place with 224,000 listeners. Pat Kenny was Newstalk’s best performer pulling in 206,000 in the final report before he moves to weekends, which was enough to see him just about scrape into the top 20.