THOUSANDS OF radio listeners tuned out from weekday programmes in recent months but weekend shows fared better, according to the latest results from the JNLR/Ipsos mrbi survey.
While RTÉ retains its hold on the top 10 most listened to programmes, the majority of these shows saw a fall in listenership in the period April 2009 to March 2010, compared with the period from January to December 2009.
The previous survey showed falls in the audience figures for many commuter programmes. Those falls continued in this survey but were evident in programmes throughout the day.
The State’s most popular radio show, Morning Ireland, lost 19,000 listeners, although it still commanded a listenership of 445,000.
Liveline, which had been picking up listeners in recent surveys, saw a drop of 10,000 in its audience.
Ryan Tubridy and the late Gerry Ryan lost 11,000 listeners each, while Pat Kenny saw his listenership cut by 9,000.
Today with Pat Kennyslipped one place in the top 10 to seventh place, as Marian Finucane bucked the trend by gaining 4,000 listeners for her Sunday show and moved up to sixth place.
She also picked up 1,000 extra listeners for her Saturday morning show. Her weekend shows have been steadily increasing their audience figures in recent surveys.
There was also good news for the radio highlights show Playback, presented by Ruth Buchanan, and The Business, presented by John Murray, with both showing a rise in ratings.
But there was no good news for the evening drivetime programmes on RTÉ Radio 1, Today FM or Newstalk.
Mary Wilson's Drivetimeshow lost 7,000 listeners, while its Today FM rival, The Last Word, fared worse, losing 9,000 listeners. Newstalk's drivetime show, The Right Hook, lost 3,000 listeners after making strong gains in earlier surveys.
Today FM’s most listened to presenter, Ray D’Arcy, lost 5,000 listeners for his morning show.
The survey results showed 86 per cent of the adult population listened daily to a mix of national, regional, multi-city and local radio throughout the State during the period. This was a fall of 1 per cent on the last survey.
Small decreases in market share were recorded for RTÉ Radio 1 at 22.9 per cent (-0.5), RTÉ 2fm at 9.7 per cent (-0.4), Today FM at 9.6 per cent (-0.3) and Newstalk at 3.9 per cent (-0.1).
RTÉ’s Lyric FM retained its market share of 1.6 per cent. And the market share of multi-city, regional and local stations in the 7am-7pm period increased by 1.3 per cent.
Once again, the most listened to local radio station was Donegal’s Highland Radio but it, too, saw a fall in its market share, dropping 1.4 per cent to 64.1 per cent. Tipp FM, in second place, increased its market share by 1.8 per cent to 55.3 per cent.
In Dublin, 98FM recorded the highest market share figure of the local stations at 11.6 per cent.
RTÉ Radio managing director Clare Duignan pointed to 2fm’s recent repositioning to target the 20- to 44-year-old age group and said it got off to a strong start.
She also paid tribute to 2fm’s most listened-to presenter, Gerry Ryan, who died suddenly two weeks ago.
Today FM’s chief executive Willie O’Reilly said the independent station had anticipated some losses as a result of increased competition and less commuting.
Newstalk chief executive Frank Cronin said the national station was now reaching 259,000 listeners daily, an increase of 12,000 compared with this time last year.
