Radio 1 makes major gains

RTE Radio 1 has made major gains in listenership, according to the latest radio listenership figures.

The State broadcaster’s flagship station increased its market share by 0.8 per cent in the year up to last March, the JNLR/TNS mbri survey shows.

Radio 1 now has a national market share of 22.7 per cent, almost twice the listenership of the next most popular station, RTE 2FM.

The latter broadcaster saw its share of radio listenership drop by 0.2 per cent to 11.6 per cent, while commercial station Today FM suffered a 0.3 per cent fall in market share, to 10.6 per cent.

The other national commercial station, Newstalk FM, enjoyed a marginal improvement in its fortunes, by increasing its market share by 0.1 per cent to 3.6 per cent. Classical music station Lyric FM, which recently marked is 10th anniversary, was unchanged at 1.7 per cent.

In Dublin, RTE Radio 1’s dominance of the airwaves is even clearer. It holds a 31.4 per cent share of listenership, up 0.9 per cent. Music station FM104 comes next, with a 12.6 per cent share, followed by Dublin’s 98 on 11 per cent and 2FM on 10.1 per cent. Newstalk has a 7.3 per cent market share, ahead of Today FM on 6 per cent.

As usual, the most listened-to local station remains Highland Radio in Co Donegal, which increased its market share by an impressive 2.1 per cent to 62.4 per cent.

Tipp FM did even better, by increasing market share by 3.3 per cent to attain a 52.3 per cent market share in its area. In contrast, Mid-West Radio lost 4.1 per cent of its share of the market and is now listened to by 52.2 per cent of the local population.

The least listened-to stations are Kfm, with a market share of 16.5 per cent (down 1.4 per cent), Galway Bay FM, at 20.6 per cent and East Coast FM, whose market share stands at 27.1 per cent.

Some 86 per cent of the population listens daily to the radio, according to the survey.