Hopes among staff and management at the Dublin news station, NewsTalk 106, that its fortunes might significantly improve were dashed yesterday by the latest radio listenership figures.
Despite spending approximately 600,000 on marketing since Christmas, the station is still attracting just 2 per cent of the radio audience in Dublin, the same figure it achieved in the last set of JNLR figures.
Its chief executive, Mr Aidan Dunne, said: "We are astonished at the low rate of growth, it is very much at variance with our own independent research".
Staff and management hoped the latest figures would see the station turning the corner, but remaining on 2 per cent will come as a disappointment.
Some staff hoped the station might at least reach 4 per cent and there was some speculation about reaching 8 per cent. The figures refer to average weekday listenership among people aged 15 and upwards.
NewsTalk achieved 2 per cent of what is known as the "listened yesterday" figure in the six months to March 2002. While it attracted about 3,000 extra listeners in this period, the failure to break the symbolic 2 per cent point is a setback.
Mr Dunne said the station was currently carrying out an audit of its whole output and the latest figures would accelerate that process. "If changes are needed we will have no problem making them," he said.
NewsTalk will not be able to approach advertisers with fresh JNLR figures until late summer and a further fund-raising may have to take place in the meantime. In the last fund-raising, the owners of FM 104, Capital Radio Productions, declined to contribute any more funds.
While the figures may make it hard for NewsTalk to attract additional advertising revenue, one of its major shareholders is Mr Denis O'Brien and so far he has been willing to invest extra money in the project.
It is understood some of the station's shareholders want to see changes to the station's programming, with more emphasis on offering something different to RTÉ.
"The station still lacks a clearly defined personality. It needs to be different and needs to give ordinary listeners a sense of ownership," commented one source yesterday.
However, the station's internal figures indicate a healthy response to its evening show The Right Hook and the breakfast show presented by David McWilliams.
Elsewhere in Dublin, FM 104 and 98 FM both showed reasonable increases, with 98 FM up 4 per cent and FM 104 up 2 per cent.
Today FM was down nationally, but up in Dublin.