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John McMahon – new programme director at 2FM


Scott Williams – growing niche for Q102’s ‘more music, less talk’ formula


In the article, entitled ‘We should all go gaga about radio' (13


July, 2010), Murray probably captured better than any set of JNLR (Joint National Listenership Research) data why radio continues to occupy a special position within the Irish media ecosystem: “Radio has distinct advantages above visual media,” she wrote. “It respects our imagination, recognises our capacity to visualise what we hear, to colour what we envision and see with our own minds. It allows us to hear colour, see sound, taste music, feel conversa- tion and be touched by all our senses simultaneously.” Indeed it is that very intimate experience it delivers that results in


radio taking around one-third of all the time that we as a nation spend with media of various sorts each day. Figures in the recently released JNLR underscored that position


– some 86pc of adults tune in on a daily basis and allocate, often subconsciously, over four hours of their day to a range of radio sta- tions. Even among ‘digital natives’ – that generation of young adults aged under 24 – the levels of listening continue to average at over three hours per day. Despite the advent of many compet- ing news and entertainment sources, these figures have remained remarkably stable over the last decade or more.


Audiences As the nation became absorbed by the latest twists and turns of our economic and political status over the last two years, therewas a nat- ural momentum in favour of ‘news-speech’ driven stations. The lat- est JNLR, however, indicates a move back towards music-led sta- tions and some audience losses for the ‘news’ stations. The market leader, RTÉ Radio 1, has posted a 5pc fall in its daily


national audience to 24pc of adults (858,000) – see Table 1. It also had mixed results across its key programmes, with its flagship show, Morning Ireland, losing 18,000 listeners, but both Today With Pat Kenny (+9,000 listeners) and Drivetime with MaryWilson (+6,000 lis- teners) showing gains year-on-year. There has also been growth in the station’s core ABC1 listenership – up one percentage point, both nationally and in Dublin, and up by three points in Cork. Newstalk, which continues to compete strongly against Radio 1,


but with more limited resources, showed some growth, with daily reach now at 260,000 and all-day market share at just over 4pc. It


42 Marketing Age Volume 4 Issue 3 2010


Pat Kenny – increased numbers for his morning show


David Tighe, chief executive, Radio Nova – station’s launch has intensified competitiveness in the Dublin market


is also less dependent for audience in its original market of Dublin, with Munster, and Cork in particular, showing share growth for the station. Although its sports coverage tends to be the element that receives the most critical acclaim, its two drivetime shows remain its highest audience drivers – Breakfast adding 2,000 listeners and The Right Hook adding a further 1,000 listeners during the period. Its Communicorp stable mate Today FM, had a more disap- pointing year with average listenership falling 11pc to 477,000 and its market share down by one point. While The Ray D’Arcy Show added 3,000 listeners year-on-year, its two other key programmes, The Ian Dempsey Breakfast Show and The Last Word, shed 20,000 and 19,000 listeners respectively. On a more positive note, it was one of very few stations which managed to grow its Dublin audience – up by 9pc in the past year. Now over a decade on air, Today FM is in that difficult stage of


brand maturity and is trying to maintain its position as the station of choice for younger white-collar urbanites. The station continues to perform strongly amongst its core age segment of 25–44s ver- sus its national competitor, 2FM (23pc and 20pc respectively). However, 2FM is not the competition it once was and for a station like Today FM, which has defined itself as much by what it isn’t as what it is (ie not RTÉ!), it needs now to try to add that ‘whiff of sul- phur’ (as was said about one of its original presenters), which will help to give it the edge again.


Stiff competition 2FM is very much a station in transition at the moment and in the last year it continued to leak listeners to the newer wave of local music stations. Under the guidance of its new programme direc- tor, John McMahon, it is trying to recapture some of the lustre it lost in chasing the promiscuous youth vote over the last decade. The loss of the station’s mainstay, Gerry Ryan, was a serious blow to 2FM’s refocus on a slightly older demographic of 30–44s. It will be hoping that the recently-announced presenter changes at breakfast and across the morning will help to restore former glories and future JNLR figures will be studied with greater eagerness. It has taken the recent multi-city licence holder, 4FM, longer than its station management and investors would have liked to gain a


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