Big audiences for election coverage

RTÉ also covered the election on TG4, Radio 1, Raidió na Gaeltachta and Aertel.

RTÉ's marathon coverage of the general election results drew large audiences over the weekend, with many viewers staying with the unfolding story into the early hours of the morning.

Some 250,000 viewers watched the results of the electronic counts in three constituencies on Friday night and Saturday morning. This amounted to a 49 per cent share of all adults watching television.

When continuous coverage of the manual counts began on Saturday afternoon, 223,000 people tuned in. This figure climbed steadily to reach 607,400, who watched the 9 O'Clock News. This represented 50 per cent of viewers, with slightly more men than women watching.

The post-midnight coverage, which continued until 3 a.m., drew an audience share of 44 per cent. However, these viewing figures are considerably lower than those recorded for the leaders' debate between Bertie Ahern and Michael Noonan last Tuesday. RTÉ said 1.2 million people tuned into this hour-long programme at some point.

The weekend election programmes were anchored by Brian Farrell, Miriam O'Callaghan, John Bowman and Bryan Dobson, with reports from RTÉ staff at every count centre.

The station also reported a five-fold increase in traffic on its website on Saturday, a two-fold increase on Sunday as well as a substantial rise in the number of SMS messages sent to mobile phone subscribers.