If You Don’t Understand The Last Two Years Don’t Worry About The Next Fifteen Minutes

Michael Hedges November 9, 2015 Follow on Twitter

In a fixed media universe competition is straightforward; tactics overwhelming strategies in battles to gain advantage over the other guys. Positioning lessons based in product marketing urge clarity, utility and availability. But, as physics teaches, the universe is constantly expanding. In the distance is either the great white light or a black hole. The audience wants to know.

Being modest and mature Ireland’s radio market moves in increments. Today’s best known brands are, largely, unchanged from last year or the year before that; show hosts skipping from one to another and street-smart promotional stunts highlighting the tactical. Digital platforms have made hardly a dent, except for Spotify and all the other streaming services up-ending the music listener market.

Public broadcaster RTÉ’s Radio 1 remains the country’s most listened to channel, according to recently released audience estimates of national listening. The traditional general interest channel attracted 22.3% of persons 15+ listening weekdays between 07h00 and 19h00 in the sweeping October 2014 to September 2015 survey period. It attracted 34.0% listening share in the greater Dublin area, up from 32.5% one year on.

“The last few years have been very tough but we have been able to inject a little bit of investment in recent times,” said Radio 1 director Tom Maguire, quoted by Irish Times (October 29). “We have changed half our daytime schedule in just two years and that’s not something I could have imagined possible.”

National commercial channel Today FM, owned by Communicorp, held 2nd place in the national rankings, 7.9% share, down year on year from 9.0%. Indeed, Today FM lost two high-profile show hosts to RTÉ Radio 1 in the past year. The traditional audience target has been 20 to 44 year year olds, more than ever difficult to hold with music, news and sports. Today FM ranks 6th in the greater Dublin survey area.

RTÉ’s 2FM has been undergoing a bit of audience redefinition and, it seems, benefitting from it as well as program chess-playing of other competitors. Listening share rose to 6.8% nationally from 6.6% year on year. Show hosts at 2FM have also changed.

The channel “needed to be positioned as a youth station with a clear identity,” said station director Dan Healy to Irish Examiner (November 6). “We had some very good presenters on 2fm, but there wasn’t a sense of unity — or should that be continuity — throughout the day, but there certainly is now. There’s still much to be done, but I believe the station can grow steadily in the next few years.” Ah, yes, listeners always like knowing what they’re getting.

“2FM went from competing with no one,” says 2FM show host Ciara King, quoted by Irish Examiner, “to competing with not just youth (and) new national radio stations, but also competing with the new technology which could see an average person with limited internet connections access podcasts or live streams of radio stations from shows across the UK or as far as Australia. The choice became much larger and 2FM had to learn to adapt to that.”

“Quasi-national” Newstalk, also owned by Communicorp, bumped up slightly, 6.6% listening share from 6.3% one year on. Management changes there included program director and editor-in-chief this past May. Newstalk also pinched long-serving RTÉ radio and TV host Pat Kenny two years ago.

In the Dublin survey area, ratings and rankings reflect the reach of local stations. Following Radio 1 is FM104, UTV Radio’s hit music station. Newstalk slips in at number 3, followed by the other Communicorp stations Spin 103.8, 98FM and Today FM, in order. Sunshine 106.8, one of the rare commercial stations not owned by Communicorp or UTV, switched format in September 2014 from country music to easy listening; Dublin listening share jumped to 4.4% from 2.5% year on year.

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