> MEDIAWATCH
foothold. It now has a daily audience of 56,000 nationally, with 23,000 of those in Dublin. Its recent marketing campaign with a clearer music definition may have some impact in the next set of JNLR results. The station has taken some share from both Today FM and 2FM, but pressure on funding in a depressed advertising market will make the next six months a real challenge. The recent launch of Radio Nova has further ratcheted up the
level of competitiveness within the Dublin market. There are now at least 12 national and local stations competing for advertising spend and a further range of legal and illegal ‘special interest’ operators endeavouring to carve out audience share. Of the main music-led stations, FM104 has held onto its market leadership over 98FM, although both lost listeners in the last year. The youth- focused Spin 103.8 now has marginally more listeners overall than its older sibling, 98FM. The relatively unsung success story of Dublin radio has been
Q102 though. Now just over six years on air, the station, under the stewardship of founder Scott Williams and UTV Dublin’s group programme director Dave Kelly, has shrewdly plotted a growing niche for its ‘more music, less talk’ formula. It recently registered its highest daily reach and market share figures at 131,000 and 10pc respectively, and has established a strong franchise amongst the ‘housewives with young families’ audience.
Radio turf wars Irish commercial radio has been littered with multiple station launches, re-launches and skirmishes for market supremacy for the best part of 20 years. However, there has rarely been so much upheaval in such a short space of time as has happened this sum- mer, particularly across the breakfast and mid-morning programme segments. The untimely death of Gerry Ryan has resulted in a mass game of ‘musical chairs’ across the main national and Dublin music stations. The headline change was, of course, Ryan Tubridy stepping
into the prime 2FM mid-morning slot and being replaced on Radio 1 by John Murray. Since then Hector Ó’hEochagáin has been given the task of restoring some momentum to the very challeng- ing breakfast show segment. Elsewhere, Newstalk has revamped its flagship breakfast show following the departure of Claire Byrne and Conor Brophy and 98FM has appointed Aidan Power to take over its morning show from the successful ‘Breakfast Crew’. Meanwhile ‘Jim Jim’ Nugent has returned from 2FM to rebuild the breakfast audience on FM104. When one adds in the recent launch of the new Dublin adult
rock station, Radio Nova, and the slow but steady rise of 4FM, then commercial radio currently exudes all the stability of a high- wire act suffering from the DTs on a stormy day.
Commercial reality Coupled with this talent upheaval, radio has had a tough time from a commercial perspective too. In the seven months to July this
44 Marketing Age Volume 4 Issue 3 2010
Table 1: Daily Listening by Radio Station: National Adults 2008/9
000s % 000s % 000s
RTE Radio 1 899 25 858 24 -5% RTE 2FM Lyric FM Today FM Newstalk
557 16 506 14 -9% 127 4 112 3
4FM -- 56 3 Any Local
1,626 46 1,617 46 -1%
Source: JNLR/IPSOS – Carat Ireland – Jul ’09–Jun ’10 vs Jul ’08–Jun ‘09
2009/10 % change in
in associationwith
Chart 1: Daily Radio listening/hours per day – Irish Adults
Adults Under 25s
5 4 3 2 1 0
4.12 3.33
4.01 3.3
4.03 3.18
4.17 3.28
4.25 3.21
4.23 3.17
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
-12%
534 15 477 14 -11% 257 7 260 7 +1% n/a
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