Pat Kenny sees biggest listener gain at 9am after summer shakeup on Irish radio

The 9am slot on RTÉ Radio 1 has added 13,000 listeners since the departure of Ryan Tubridy, but it is Pat Kenny who has emerged as the big winner of the summer upheaval on Irish radio, the latest audience figures show.

Kenny’s 9am-12pm programme on Newstalk has seen its listenership rise by 26,000 in recent months to 205,000, marking the first time that a Newstalk show has exceeded 200,000 and helping the station to its highest ever market share.

“Pat recently celebrated 10 years at Newstalk and has never sounded better. It is great to see that the audience are continuing to move the dial to hear more of him,” said Newstalk managing editor Patricia Monahan.

On an annual basis, listenership for Kenny – who left RTÉ Radio 1 for rival Newstalk in 2013 – is up by 28,000.

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Meanwhile, RTÉ Radio 1′s 9am slot commanded a listenership of 347,000 in the latest Joint National Listenership Research (JNLR) survey, which covers the year to the end of September.

This was higher than the 334,000 listeners secured by the hour-long show in the previous survey for the year to the end of June, suggesting that audiences have been tuning into stand-in presenters such as Oliver Callan.

On an annual basis, the popularity of the slot has increased by a more modest 3,000 listeners, and it remains below the numbers who listened to Tubridy between 2020 and the middle of last year.

The former Late Late Show host held the slot from 2015 until late June, when he was taken off air by RTÉ while it investigated its failure to properly disclose his remuneration.

After talks between Tubridy and RTÉ director general Kevin Bakhurst about a return to Radio 1 broke down in August, RTÉ renamed the slot the Nine O’Clock Show. Callan has been the main stand-in, while Brendan Courtney and Maura Derrane have also filled in.

Amid ongoing fallout from the hidden payments scandal, RTÉ is yet to confirm Callan or any other presenter as a permanent replacement. The Nine O’Clock Show’s audience is likely to have been assisted by listeners’ curiosity about how Callan, a satirist, would react to the RTÉ crisis.

It has also received a greater inheritance of listeners from Morning Ireland, which has extended its lead as the most popular programme on Irish radio. Radio 1′s flagship news and current affairs show now has a listenership of 463,000, up by 23,000 higher since the last survey, published in August, and 12,000 higher than a year ago.

Today with Claire Byrne has added 8,000 listeners since the last survey, taking its audience back to 331,000, the same level as a year earlier.

Mr Bakhurst thanked listeners for sticking with RTÉ during an “extraordinarily challenging period” for the broadcaster.

“As we prepare to set a new strategic direction for RTÉ, the latest listenership figures are an endorsement of the enduring popularity and value of public service media, direct from the audiences we serve,” he said.

Elsewhere on Radio 1, Louise Duffy and Ray D’Arcy have added listeners since the last survey, rising to 213,000 and 187,000 respectively. The News at One was flat at 303,000 and Liveline’s listenership declined by 3,000 to 302,000.

On Saturday, Brendan O’Connor has 335,000 listeners, down 3,000, while his Sunday audience was unchanged at 323,000.

RTÉ 2FM saw its biggest shows go in the right direction, with 2FM Breakfast with Doireann, Donncha and Carl adding 11,000 listeners to reach 149,000 and Drive It with the 2 Johnnies also gaining 11,000 listeners to reach 151,000.

Jennifer Zamparelli has 136,000 listeners in the mid-morning slot, up 3,000, while Tracy Clifford added 6,000 listeners to take her audience in the early afternoon to 113,000.

“This has been a challenging number of months for RTÉ, but as ever the team at 2FM have been focused solely on serving younger audiences in Ireland,” said Dan Healy, head of RTÉ radio strategy and RTÉ 2FM.

On Today FM, which like Newstalk is part of the German-owned Bauer Media Audio, Dermot & Dave saw their audience swell to an all-time high of 227,000, up 11,000 since the last survey and up 29,000 year-on-year. Dermot Whelan left Today FM in August, with Dave Moore becoming the solo occupant of the 9am-12pm slot near the end of the survey period.

Pamela Joyce, who announced this week that she is also leaving the station, had 142,000 listeners at lunchtime, down 3,000 since the last survey but up 12,000 year-on-year, while Ray Foley’s audience stands at 164,000, down 9,000 since the last survey but up 15,000 year-on-year.

Ian Dempsey continues to advance at breakfast, with his listenership of 225,000 up 4,000 since the last survey and 26,000 year-on-year, while The Last Word with Matt Cooper rose 8,000 to 182,000, up 18,000 on an annual basis. Weekend Breakfast with Alison Curtis also won new listeners and now has an audience of 192,000 on a Saturday and 166,000 on a Sunday.

Despite these gains, Today FM’s national market share dipped slightly to 9.7 per cent, while Newstalk’s rose to an all-time high of 7.6 per cent. With Radio 1 and 2FM’s shares edging up to 20.4 per cent and 6.2 per cent respectively, national radio did well overall, with local and regional stations collectively losing ground.

As well as the strong performance by the Pat Kenny Show, Newstalk made gains in the middle of the day, with Lunchtime Live adding 5,000 listeners since the last survey to reach 107,000 and Sean Moncrieff’s audience increasing by 7,000 to a record 110,000.

Radiocentre Ireland, the cross-industry representative body, said radio was enjoying “an unprecedented boom” with continual increases in overall audience levels and daily radio listenership of 3.35 million people up by 176,000 compared to the same period two years ago.