Radio Nova’s Morning Glory breakfast presenters start the week haunted by a terrible spectre: the popularity of Crocs. “Would Generation Alpha call them cool? Is ‘cool’ still cool?” wonders Jim McCabe. “They look like prison-issue shoes,” comedian PJ Gallagher joins in. “What’s going on in the world, Jim?”
Never mind the world: what’s going on at the Generation X-led Radio Nova is that it has become the music station with the biggest market share in Dublin, new figures from the Joint National Listenership Research (JNLR) survey show.
This is a title that has jumped about a bit in recent years, and may well continue to chop and change, but for now it’s Radio Nova’s turn to hold the crown, which it does courtesy of music it dubs “seriously addictive” and a line-up of presenters not afraid to lean into middle age.
Soon after lamenting the latest Crocs revival, Gallagher and McCabe, reckoning Generation Z won’t have heard of Delia Smith, explain the concept of the original TV cooks to any listeners too young to remember, mining for comic value Smith’s comments about Gen Z cooks not knowing the joys of a “good pork chop”.
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Over on RTÉ Radio 1, meanwhile, the chances are that much of the core listenership will already be familiar with the name Fanny Cradock.
In Dublin, Radio 1 has a 29.9 per cent share of listening – a metric based on listening from 7am-7pm on weekdays – putting it way out ahead overall. Radio 1 is more popular in Dublin than it is outside of it, though it still manages a national market share of 20.7 per cent.
It may well be just the circles I’m mixing in, but music-led shows often seem to be the ones on the Radio 1 schedule that attract the most positive comments – the appreciation tinged with a dash of surprise. Maybe diehard all-day-long Radio 1 loyalists are so weighed down by hours of news that by the time Louise Duffy comes on at noon, they’ve almost forgotten how much of a mood-lift a carefully chosen selection of music can be.
But Radio 1 is not a music station, and nor is the station with the second-highest market share in Dublin, Bauer Media Audio-owned Newstalk, which has advanced to a 12.3 per cent share of the capital’s listening (and an all-time-high of 8.7 per cent nationally).
So that brings us to the station with the third-biggest market share in Dublin: that’s now Radio Nova, which gained 1.1 percentage points in the JNLR for July 2023-June 2024 to reach a share of 8.3 per cent. This puts it ahead of a trio of traditionally solid performers: Wireless Ireland’s FM104 on 7.3 per cent, Sunshine 106.8 on 7.2 per cent and Bauer’s Spin 1038 on 7.1 per cent.
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Understandably, chief executive and programme director Kevin Branigan is delighted with Nova’s 246,000 weekly listeners and the “encouraging” growth in its daily audience to 135,000 across its franchise area of Dublin city, county and the commuter belt.
Nova’s press release, which noted that the share of “long-time rival” FM104 was “now trailing behind at 7.3 per cent”, also flew the green flag: “That an Irish-owned radio station such as Nova can pass out all of the other music radio services owned by internationally owned groups such as Bauer (Today FM, 98FM, Spin) and [News UK’s] Wireless (FM104, Q102) is a great achievement for our team,” said Branigan.
The station – which holds the licence for a “classic rock-music-based sound broadcasting service targeting adults aged 25-plus” – has been on a three-year run of audience growth to get to where it has.
During this time, Bauer’s Spin 1038, which targets 15-34 year olds, was the music leader and then Sunshine 106.8 – in which Radio Nova’s owner Bay Broadcasting has a substantial interest – also went out in front for a spell.
Immediately before Nova’s ascent to the top, FM104 nudged ahead of the pack once more. The Wireless station, which has a licence to target 15-34 year olds, once enjoyed more daylight between it and the rest – about seven years ago, its share was 12.1 per cent.
Perhaps more interesting is which stations are not in medal contention at all. Today FM, which nationally has the second-biggest market share overall (8.9 per cent) behind Radio 1, takes just 5.8 per cent of listening in the capital.
Two stations – 98FM and Q102 – follow on 4.8 per cent, with the jury out on whether simulcasting Ryan Tubridy’s weekday midmorning Virgin Radio UK show is going to do the business for Q102. And then it’s the turn of RTÉ 2FM, which has a 6.2 per cent national share but has long underperformed in Dublin, where it takes just 3.8 per cent.
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RTÉ Lyric FM also has 3.8 per cent in the city (where it outperforms its national share of 2.7 per cent), while Bay’s Classic Hits Radio is on 3 per cent.
With these shares lining up the way they do – and with Spin 1038 commanding a dominant 21.8 per cent share of 15-34-year-old radio listening – it’s not hard to understand why head of 2FM Dan Healy once called the Dublin radio market a “bloodbath”.
The steady rise of Nova is testament, however, to what can be achieved by a small team that knows its audience, knows the “seriously addictive” music they like and, just shy of its 14th birthday, is still growing as a result. Is it cool? Well, that depends. Is “cool” still cool?
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