Dempsey and Yates celebrate as thousands more listeners tune in
IAN Dempsey, Ivan Yates and Ryan Tubridy were celebrating today after they were among the biggest winners in the JNLR.
The latest Joint National Listenership Research (JNLR) figures showed Dempsey increased his audience by a massive 18,000 listeners in the last three months, bringing the total for his Today FM breakfast show to 180,000.
RTÉ Radio One’s ‘Morning Ireland’ remains the country’s most-listened-to programme, adding some 5,000 listeners, bringing its total to 439,000.
Yates was another big winner, with the audience for his Newstalk evening show ‘The Hard Shoulder’ continuing to grow steadily.
He added another 13,000 listeners in the last three months, bringing his total to 170,000, and showing an increase of 31,000 year on year.
In the last 12 months, he has overtaken his Virgin Media ‘Tonight Show’ co-host Matt Cooper, who attracted an extra 5,000 listeners to his total of 142,000.
There was success for Tubridy’s Radio One show, which airs weekdays straight after ‘Morning Ireland’, with 325,000 listeners showing gains of 12,000 on the last book. Listenership has gone up 7,000 year on year.
Newstalk Breakfast has made gains after it slipped last book, now reaching 128,000 listeners, up 7,000 book on book.
Those figures did not surpass 2FM’s ‘Breakfast Republic’, which had 187,000 listeners, but the show suffered a loss of 2,000 listeners.
Sunday listenership on RTÉ Radio One also took a hit, with a significant drop for both Miriam O’Callaghan and Marian Finucane.
O’Callaghan was down 24,000 listeners to 246,000.
Finucane was down by 10,000 listeners book on book to 312,000 on Sunday, but a spokesperson for RTÉ said that Sunday figures were traditionally “volatile” and the drop may be explained by the time of year.
“The station is confident that the figures will swing back up,” it said.
On RTÉ Radio One in general, there were steady gains: Sean O’Rourke gained 3,000 listeners, moving up to 320,000.
He was still ahead of the ‘Pat Kenny Show’ on Newstalk, which reached 155,000, although Kenny made gains of 6,000 book on book.
Ronan Collins saw an increase of 4,000, attracting 221,000 listeners.
The ‘News at One’ was up 2,000, at 343,000 listeners, while ‘Liveline’ was up 7,000 to 381,000. Ray D’Arcy upped his listenership by 2,000 to 221,000 book on book.
Drop
However, ‘Drive Time’ with Mary Wilson was down 1,000 to 221,000.
Over on 2FM, there was disappointment for Eoghan McDermott, who dropped 7,000 listeners to 138,000.
Head of 2FM Dan Healy said the news “took him by surprise” as McDermott was not only a music lover but “well able to talk about Brexit and Trump too”.
Today FM now has increased weekly listenership to 893,000, 56,000 ahead of 2FM.
On Newstalk, ‘Lunchtime Live’ with Ciara Kelly had 105,000 listeners, jumping 4,000 listeners in the last quarter with a steady increase of 6,000 year on year.
Seán Moncrieff was listened to by 97,000, gaining 6,000, with impressive annual gains of 15,000 year on year.