2023 (JNLR’s, buyouts, and a pinch of Ryan Tubridy)

Lots happens in the radio industry each week so here’s a summary of the week we just enjoyed.

Here’s what Happened

Bauer are buying another radio station. Yes, another one.

This time it’s Iradio’s turn to become part of the big radio family, subject to them getting all the necessary go ahead from regulators, competition bodies, etc.

We can speculate about what this means, but realistically we know the playbook at this point. Cash Machine, GoLoud, and maybe a presenter shakeup. Bauers already huge grip on the industry was clear to see, and now it’s getting even tighter.

It’s hard to know how to put this, but Bauer is at this point taking over not just radio stations, but also the industry as a whole. There buying more and more stations, but even stations operated by other operators are doing things the Bauer way. That can’t be healthy.

Rather than do big analysis of this deal, we’re just going to ask a simple question. Is Bauer too big? Go vote on our Instagram story now.

Read the story here

It’s been another crazy three months, and it’s time to see who’s going up and down with the latest JNLR results.

Let’s start with Radio 1

RTE has had a disastrous few months, but at least for now listenership seems okay. With Tubridy leaving we might see big changes here soon, but let’s look at where we’re at now.

440,000 listen to Morning Ireland, which is a boost of 3,000 from last time. Every little helps
Last time I covered listenership numbers for tubs I called him “the most talked about man in Ireland”. i mean at least I know my content is evergreen. Anyway, unfortunately Tubridy won’t be going out on a high, he lost 1,000 listeners and had 334,000 tuning in.
Today with Claire Byrne has 323,000 listeners. That’s down 4,000 but she gain 6,000 last time so it’s not too bad.
News at One is up 3,000 and now sits at 303,000 listeners, or so RTÉ say. There seems to be an error here somewhere as RTEs last reported listenership was 299,000 from the show. Either the slot gain 4,000 listeners, or RTÉ under reported listeners last time. It’s also possible that they’ve over reported listeners in this book. We’ve reached out to RTÉ media sales to clarify and will update the article if we receive a response.
LiveLine is down 1,000 and sits at 305,000. This is based on numbers from the Irish Times, as RTÉ didn’t include the numbers for the show in their press release.
183,000 listeners tune into Ray Darcy which is up 2,000. Ray was on a down hill slope there for a while but he’s up 6,000 in the last two books.
Drivetime also did well and has seen listener numbers grow. It’s up 6,000 for an audience of 220,000.

Seems like an okay book for the station, with strong growth being seen at the weekend too. RTE haven’t shared numbers for Louise Duffy, so I’ll update the article if I get those. All in all an okay book though.

RTE 2FM is also doing okay

Really 2FM has seen good results for key shows. Let’s take a look at how things are going

2FM Breakfast with Doireann, Donncha, and Carl has 138,000 listeners. They’ve shown consistent steady growth and are up another 3,000 this book.
133,000 listen to Jennifer Zamparelli, which is the same as last time.
Tracey Clifford is having a bit of a bad time at the moment losing yet more listeners. She’s now at 107,000 which is a 2,000 drop. She’s lost 20,000 in the last 4 books, so that’s got to sting a little.
The 2 johnnies had a lovely boost of 10,000 and now sit at 140,000. That’s really as good as it gets. Fair play.

Generally all good news, but it’s looking like it’s time for some changes for Tracey. Hopefully she gets a boost next time as otherwise I’d be very concerned for her. Can she do a ray Darcy and turn it around?

“2FM is in good health following the publication of listenership results for the most recent period. In general, most of our programmes have experienced an increase in audience. Particularly pleasing for all of us at 2FM is the continuous growth at breakfast time with Doireann, Donncha and Carl. With each quarter the show experiences steady growth. Producer Grace Callaghan and right hand person Willem McCarthy also deserve credit for the good shape the show is in. The two lads from Cahir , not yet on air two years, are out performing 2FM’s primetime share by 25%, this is a phenomenal result for The 2 Johnnies. Our new weekend schedule is also bedding in well and I look forward to the next set of results. As ever a massive thanks to our loyal audience and big welcome to our new listeners.”
2FM boss Dan Healy

Today FM will be happy out

Today FM will be happy out with their results as most weekday shows are up. Some of the gains aren’t small either.

221,000 tune into Ian Dempsey each morning, which is a boost of a huge 13,000 from last time. Well done Ian.
Dermot and Dave had a listenership of 216,000, an 11,000 boost. Dermot has left the show now but it’s cool to see that he left on a high. We’ll need to wait and see if Dave can hold the audience solo.
Pamala Joyce has gained 9,000 listeners and now sits at 145,000. Today FM say she’s up nearly 10,000 listeners, which is mildly entertaining. 9,000 is nearly 10,000 so I suppose it’s fair enough.
Ray Foley continues to crush it. He’s up, again. He’s gained 10,000 and now has 173,000.
Matt cooper now has 174,000 up 7,000. This more than reverses his drop from last book.

Really it doesn’t get much better than this. Today FM are doing amazing on Basicaly every metric, and I’d imagine the German bosses at Bauer will be happy campers.

What’s the news with Newstalk

Newstalk has only recently undertaken a visual rebrand, and they’ve also been doing some advertising. While we won’t see the results of that in this book, let’s take a look at how they’re getting on.

Newstalk breakfast had another drop, and now sits at 145,000. That’s down 4,000.
179,000 people are tuning into Pat Kenny, a 6,000 listener increase according to the station. That doesn’t quite add up as they claimed he had 174,000 last time, so there’s an error somewhere. He’s up, but the details are a bit unclear.
Lunchtime live is down 4,000 and sits at 102,000. That’s dangerously close to that 100,000 clif edge
Moncrieff reached 103,000 daily listeners which is an increase of 5,000. Back over the 100,000, how bad.
149,000 listen to The Hard Shoulder, that’s down 3,000. The show has now lost 10,000 in the last 2 books.

Outside of Kenny it’s not really great news, and even pats numbers are slightly unclear. We’ll need to hold out and see if the advertising makes any difference, but this book could have gone better.

“delighted to see more listeners tuning in every day, choosing us as their talk station. We welcome them and look forward to engaging with them in conversation that counts in the coming months,”
Newstalk Managing Editor Patricia Monahan

Overall

Things are still ticking along nicely. The next few books will be interesting as we see the fallout from all the RTÉ drama, but that’s for another day.

You can check out the links below for sources.

Finally this week a story that in some ways I didn’t expect. It’s official, Ryan Tubridy is not going to be returning to radio 1, at least for now.

The news came on Thursday evening when RTÉs Director general Kevin Bakhurst issued a statement saying he was concluding negotiations. Kevin spoke of a breakdown in trust between the parties, following a statement from Ryan responding to a Grant Thornton report.

Despite having agreed some of the fundamentals, including fee, duration and hours, regretfully, it is my view that trust between the parties has broken down. Public statements made without consultation appear to question the basis for the necessary restatement of fees paid for services for 2020 and 2021.
Section of the statement from Kevin Bakhirst

The debate is now over. Love or hate Ryan, you won’t be hearing him on radio 1. Following the announcement there were some nice tributes to Ryan on the news, which in many ways felt like eulogies to his career. we also had Kevin Bakhurst give an interview to Morning Ireland, confirming that Tubridy is perfectly entitled to head over to Newstalk or virgin now.

Who knows what’s next for Ryan. He could certainly make money with a podcast if he wants to. It’s also unclear what’s going to happen to his slot on radio. It’s the end of an era in some ways, but it can also be seen as an exciting time for change. this might well be the making of Ryan, but perhaps that’s too optimistic. I certainly don’t envy how he feels right now as if you think about it, he’s actually been canceled.

Best wishes to Ryan and RTÉ. Hopefully this relationship can heal in time.

Read the story here

Quick Bits

Liam Thompson is replacing Colm Hayes as PD at Irelands Classic Hits Radio

⁨Sheila Naughton⁩ has started a new job at Newstalk after stepping down as Tipp FMs head of news

The second series of podcasts produced by the Irish Prison Service is out now, well worth a listen

Malachi Cush is hosting a new RTE radio 1 show

The Doc On One podcast is up for sponsorship

BBC are airing a 4 part radio documentary on Seamus Heaney

And that’s the summary for this week. Come back to radio land next week for more radio news📻 and be sure to check us out on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn for more fun from the world of radio.

This Week In Radio 13/9/2023 (JNLR numbers anyone?)

Lots happens in the radio industry each week so here’s a summary of the week we just enjoyed.

Here’s what happened

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, it’s JNLR time once again. It’s time to take a look at who’s up and who’s down in the latest round of radio figures.

You can use this link to skip the JNLR stuff if you’d like

The good news is that no stations have had any catastrophe this time round, and RTÉ in particular will be satisfied knowing that their disaster of a book from last time seems to be behind them. Some shows certainly are doing better than others though, so let’s get into the details and see where people stand.

Radio 1 did better than last time

Overall the news is good for Radio 1. It’s certainly not worth a fireworks display or anything, but not bad at all.

Morning Ireland is up 4,000 and now has 437,000 tuning in each morning. They lost 18,000 in the last book so still a bit of recovery needed, but an increase is an increase at the end of the day.
The most talked about man in Ireland, also known as Ryan Tubridy, has an audience of 335,000 tuning in each morning. That’s an increase of 4,000. Tubridy will be interesting to watch over the next while as his time hosting the Late Late Show comes to an end. On one hand TV viewers might miss him and tune in on radio instead, or the lack of TV time might reduce the relevance of the show hurting it’s listenership. Fascinating times ahead.
327,000 tune into Claire Byrne each day. That’s a nice boost of 6,000.
This is where the good news ends for a while. The Louise Duffy Show has dropped 9,000 to 213,000. How much of that loss is as a result of Ronan moving on to RTÉ Gold is hard to know, but it’s certainly not ideal to be losing listeners in your first book.
News At One has 299,000 falling under the 300,000 mark. It’s a loss of 11,000 from last time which really ain’t great.
LiveLine also fell and now sits at 306,000. That’s down 4,000.
A much needed boost came for Ray Darcy, as he gained 4,000 to reach 181,000 listeners. He could still do with gaining a few more but it’s certainly an improvement.
214,000 tune in to Drive Time on Radio 1, that’s up 6,000. not bad at all.

Generally it’s not a bad performance. The shows with longer run times and consequently more ad breaks all gained listeners which is good news for the station. The Ray Darcy slot still needs serious improvement, but it’s not dropping even more listeners which is something.

“The increase in the listenership across the morning and late afternoon is very welcome. It’s a tribute to the focus and commitment of our teams and we will continue to refine our output. Weekend programmes have always fluctuated – but the position of so many of those programmes in the top ten underlines our continuing pre-eminence and connection with the audience. This was a good book.”
Peter Woods, Head of RTÉ Radio

It will be interesting to see if all the changes on telly impact radio numbers in the next few books. Time will tell.

They’ll be dancing at 2FM, mostly

Last time we spoke about 2FM, it’s presenters were all dancing their hearts out on Dancing with the stars. Some presenters benefited from that, but it’s not universal.

135,000 people now tune in to 2FM breakfast each morning. That’s up 6,000. The show got good promotion when Carl won Dancing with the stars, so we’ll need to wait and see if it’s a sustained boost.
Jennifer Zamparelli is down 1,000 and now has 133,000 tuning in. Only a small drop so no need for panic just yet.
Tracey Clifford had a 7,000 listener drop and now has 109,000. She really needs to reverse course at this stage as she’s been losing listeners consistently for a while now. She was down 4,000 in February, and down 7,000 in November. Combined that’s a loss of 18,000 in the last 3 books. Certainly not ideal.
The 2 Johnnies had a lovely boost and are now up 11,000 to 130,000 listeners. My dentist made the switch from Today FM recently,, so now you can suffer through an extraction while being entertained by the Parish Quiz. How bad.

The 2 johnnies have had a really good boost, but I’d be getting a bit concerned about Tracey. Does she need a co host? A new format? If it doesn’t improve in the next book or two it will be time to look at a more drastic change.

“Overall 2FM, has performed well. This is the first time that we have a full 12-month view of the 2 Johnnies since they joined the station in February last year. Their daily reach ( IPSOS MRBI/JNLR 2023-1) has grown by 11,000 adults since the last survey and with significant growth every quarter hour from 3pm. Doireann, Donncha and Carl also continue to grow from survey to survey. Their daily reach has increased by 21,000 from this time last year from 114,00 to 135,000.The new weekend schedule has bedded in quickly and we will have a clearer picture of how that is performing in the next survey. I want to thank everyone at 2FM, both on and off air for their creativity and hard work. Most importantly I want to thank our audience ,who despite the changing audio environment and irrespective of what device is used to listen, they know there is nothing better than live radio.”
Dan Healy, Head of RTÉ Radio Strategy and RTÉ 2FM

Things are still ticking over just fine.

Some small ups and downs for Today FM

Good news continues for Today FM, as most of their shows continue to gain listeners.

Ian Dempsey now has 208,000. That’s up 5,000 from last time. Slowly but surely moving away from that 200,000 clif edge.
Dermot & Dave had a small drop of 2,000 to stand at 205,000. Nothing worth panicking about yet.
Pamela Joyce has gained 2,000 listeners and now has 136,000 tuning in. She’s well ahead of Tracey Clifford for now, but you can never truely relax in this game.
Ray Foley continues to smash it. He’s got 3,000 new listeners and now has 163,000 each day. Not bad at all.
Matt Cooper’s down 4,000 and now sits at 168,000. Still a respectable audience but worth watching. He gained 8,000 back in February so should be grand.

The German bosses will be quite happy with this I would think. No crazy jumps, but more importantly no major losses.

“I’m incredibly proud of the Today FM team. We believe we have some of the finest talent here on-air and behind the scenes and today, our listeners have reinforced this. Together we are taking Today FM to new levels of success. One of the exciting aspects of our team is we have highly experienced professionals working together with the next generation of stars coming through. Our audience is at the heart of what we do and we have a lot of fun along the way doing it”
Fyona Smith, Managing Editor Today FM

Today FM are continueing to perform well so no need for concern.

Newstalk is doing okay, although they did have a few losses. Lots of shows staying still here too which is fair enough I guess.

Breakfast has dropped 3,000 and now has 149,000 listeners.
Pat Kenny stays at 174,000 which is still as respectable as it was last time
Lunchtime live hasn’t received a boost from Boylan it seems, it’s also stayed still with 106,000 listeners
It’s a 2,000 jump for Moncrieff with 98,000 listeners. So close to the 100,000
The hard shoulder took a hard fall of 7,000 to 152,000 listeners. Not ideal, but we’ve certainly seen worse.

Could be better and could be worse. There’s nothing wrong with staying still, so I wouldn’t be issueing a breaking news alert just yet.

Overall

Not a bad day for radio all things considered.

You can read more details on these results by clicking the links below, and we’ll be back to do it all again in 3 months time.

RTE

The independent

That other radio news site, whats it called again? Radio Today? Something like that

In other news

Wireless Radio Ireland, which is ultimately part of News Corp, made a loss of €2.58 million before tax, according to new accounts.

The group, which owns FM104 and Q102 in Dublin, 96FM and C103 in cork, live 95 in Limerick among others, has had a large reduction of staff, but it’s staff costs still went up.

240 people used to work for the company, but that number has now dropped to 201. It’s unclear where most of these jobs were cut, but the station has shown more interest in networking in recent times. Despite the lower staff count, staff costs are up from €10.56 million to €10.99 million, which is interesting to see.

The business mentioned strong digital growth, and they say they’re investing more in this area going forward.

There are more detailed financial details linked below, so go check that out if your interested. It’s ultimately a shame seeing numbers backing up staff cuts in radio, but unfortunately that’s the way it goes.

Hopefully radio will find itself on healthy ground in the years to come.

Read the story here

Usually when the minister for finance goes on a radio show, he gets asked some difficult questions by the presenter. But sometimes, politicians fight back.

Yesterday the minister for finance Michael McGrath joined Mick Mulcahy on Red FM to answer some questions. Ordinarily this would be of no relevance to Radio Land readers, but when the minister questions the presenter about the Cash Machine, it suddenly becomes more interesting.

On Thursday a cork couple from the minister’s constituency won over €40,000 on the Cash Machine. This lead to Mick attempting to get a declaration from the minister, but the endeavour didn’t go according to plan.

It is a beautiful radio moment, so allow me to share the experience with you.

Mick started as all good presenter should. He informed the minister that the following question was “just for fun”. Despite Mick’s efforts, the minister was expecting an interviewer ready for war, so he wasn’t exactly ready for fun.

Mick proceeds to point out the success the ministers constituents had on the Cash Machine the day before, and asked the minister to confirm that these winnings are tax free. This would have been grand, except the minister wasn’t sure. In order to answer the question effectively the minister needed more information about this Cash Machine thing.

The minister spoke about lotteries, leading Mick to expertly retort that “it’s a game of skill”. It was an intervention worthy of a lawyer from Mick, but Michael came back for more.

Who is the operator? Asked the minister, to which Mick responded “The GoLoud Network of Radio Stations. Mick was now on shaky ground as it’s actually Bauer Media Audio Ireland.

Before things could get any worse Mick came clean saying he just wanted a Sound Byte. The Minister proceeded to confirm that Lottery winnings are usually tax free, as long as the lottery is registered. For good measure the minister offered to look into it for Mick, at which point Nick promptly moved on to less interesting questions.

It was truly a great performance from both candidates, and it really raised some interesting questions. Is the Cash Machine a lottery? Or is it as Mick said “a game of skill”. Go vote on our Instagram story now.

Listen to the clip here:

Quick Bits

A former RTÉ supervisor has had a €60,000 personal injury claim thrown out

Former Today FM presenter Fergal Darcy is joining 2FM

Bauer Media Audio Ireland is getting a new CEO, as Simon Myciunka joins the UK arm of the business

Paul McLoone is back with Nova

Gareth O’Callaghan is returning to Classic hits after his crash in Cork

Lyric FM are doing a big outside broadcast from Bloom in June

And that’s the summary for this week. Come back to radio land next week for more radio news📻 and be sure to follow us on Twitter and Instagram for extra stories.

This week in radio 11/2/2023 (JNLR and jingles, it’s like a radio lovers dream)

Lots happens in the radio industry each week so here’s a summary of the week we just enjoyed.

Here’s what happened

The latest JNLR numbers came out on Thursday so we now have a good picture of how things are going in the radio industry. JNLR figures are hugely important as listener numbers are what ultimately brings in the advertisers who pay the bills. So, let’s take a look at how things are going.

It wasn’t a great time for Radio 1

Is post pandemic news fatigue hurting Radio 1? That’s one theory being tossed around as the station suffered some tough losses. In fact, all of the peak time weekday schedule is down. That’s not good.

Morning ireland is still the most popular show in the country, but it has had an audience drop. 433,000 listen to the show according to this book, that’s down 18,000
Tubs chats away to an audience of 331,000, thats down 13,000 from last time
321,000 listen to Claire Byrne each day. That’s 10,000 less than Tubridy and 10,000 less than her audience from the last book too.
Ronan had a loss in his last book falling 10,000 to 222,000. We’ll need to see if the slot gets a boost with Louise at the wheel, and might some of ronans audience join him on the yet to be announced show on RTÉ Gold?
LiveLine is now heard by 310,000 which is a drop of 11,000
Darcy only lost 2,000 in this book going down to 177,000, but that’s still a low radio 1 audience.
208,000 listen to Drivetime. That’s down 4,000.

Overall not great news for Radio1. They did have further to fall as they had huge gains during the pandemic, but those in RTÉ will be hoping that this is the end of the downward curve.

2FM had some ups and downs

2FM had some ups and downs in this book. While key shows are going up, the big surprise will be the loss of listeners for The 2 Johnnies. it’s a small drop, but it’s worth keeping an eye on at the same time.

2FM breakfast will be happy enough. 129,000 tune in each morning which is a boost of 5,000 from the last book. Two out of the shows 3 presenters are currently involved with Dancing With The Stars on RTÉ One Television, so that might give the show a visibility boost over the next few weeks. We’ll need to wait for the next book to see.
Jennifer Zamparelli sits at 134,000 listeners which is an increase of 3,000. A small increase but every little helps. This is a part reversal for Jenifer who lost 7,000 in the last book
Losses are mounting for Tracy Clifford who now has 116,000 listeners. She lost 7,000 back in November, and has lost another 4,000 this time.
The 2 johnnies have had their first loss in this book, they fell 3,000 and now have 119,000. It’s a small drop as I said above, but worth watching at the same time. Things have been good for this show on other fronts though as it now has a sponsor, so it’s not all bad.

Bit of a mixed bag for 2FM but breakfast in particular has been doing very well in recent books. In general not a bad performance, just some bits worth watching.

Today FM will be happy campers

The Germans will be happy with a very strong performance for Today FM.

Breakfast is back over 200,000 with an audience of 203,000. that’s a boost of 4,000
It’s 207,000 for Dermot & Dave, that’s a great increase of 9,000
Pamela Joyce has had a nice boost of 4,000 listeners. She now has 134,000
It’s up a huge 11,000 for Foley who now has 160,000
8,000 new listeners for Cooper who now has an audience of 172,000

This is good news for Bauer, especially after the losses in November. Overall a great performance.

It’s mixed news for Newstalk

Some ups and downs for Newstalk. Here’s how things are going.

152,000 now listen to Newstalk breakfast, that’s up 5,000
Pat Kenny is down 3,000 to 174,000. Not ideal but manageable at the same time.
106,000 listen to lunchtime live. That’s down 2,000
It’s up 6,000 for Moncrieff with an audience of 96,000. That’s a nice boost bringing the show closer to the 100,000 mark.
The hard shoulder has 159,000 which is a 3,000 boost from last time.

Nothing too bad here really. Not a clean sweep but a good performance at the same time.

Other stations

We aren’t able to go into detail on all stations, but here are 2 great sources if you want further reading.

The Irish Times

Adworld

It’s good to see that everything is still going strong in the radio industry. Some stations certainly didn’t have the best day ever, but like all things it’s a chance to learn and grow.

If you got JNLR results this week, let us know over on Twitter. @RadioLandIRL

Other News

It’s time for the return of a feature to Radio Land that we haven’t had for quite some time. It’s time for the return of…..

The Jingle Review!!!!

Tipp FM has some new jingles on air, but are they any good? Let’s take a listen.

First here’s the whole package

Overall I like the pack. It’s got a nice sound without being too punchy. I’m generaly a fan of sung jingles so the variety of lines for everything from breakfast to Christmas is right up my street.

At times I think there’s a bit of a disconnect between the sonic Logo of the station name and the rest of the jingle, but in general it’s a good package. Let’s look now at some specific jingles, starting with my favourite from the bunch.

Breakfast jingle

This breakfast jingle has a nice upbeat feel and I can hear exactly how it would fit into a breakfast show. I like how they have included two distinctive sung lines in the jingle but maintained a cohesive sound. Using a solo vocalist for the “good morning Tipperary” line really works, but at the same time if you had a version without that, a good presenter and desk operator could fit a nice good morning line of their own in that space. I don’t know if Tipp FM have that, but even if they don’t it’s a lovely sounding jingle that gives good flexibility to a capable presenter . Solid 8 out of 10.

Country Jingle

I mean look, it doesn’t exactly scream country, but it’s still a good jingle. Maybe a bit long at 13 seconds, but they use the time well. It feels like it could have been two seperate jingles for the tagline and show name, but I do still like it. 6.5 out of 10

General Jingle

I’m not really sure why, but this one doesn’t do it for me. It feels like it lacks cohesion somewhat. It feels like a resing where nobody was sure how best to use the time. it’s not awful by any means, but i think I’d get sick of it quickly. I’m not sure if it is a resing but that’s how it sounds, 5 out of 10

Christmas Jingle

Finally let’s get festive. This jingle has a great sound, but I have two small gripes. Firstly, half of deck the halls is missing, listen closely, the first two notes are like batteries in a dancing Santy, that’s to say they’re not included. Secondly, the station name feels like it was just tagged on the end with little regard for the other sung lines. In fairness I am being a bit of a grinch at this point, the singing in this jingle is great, and the idea to include Deck The Halls, well, half of Deck The Halls, fits the style brilliantly. It’s a good jingle with some small baubles out of place, so I give it 5.75 out of 10.

I generaly like the package so well done to everyone involved in creating it. I hope the team at Tipp FM enjoy using these over the next few months and years.

Read the story here

Marty standing holding a Lyric FM sign with a Spry Finance staff member

Lyric FM has a new partner for breakfast as Spry Finance have signed a deal to sponsor Marty in the Morning.

The sponsorship will last 6 months, with the brand getting 7 stings per show at 10 seconds each. Financial terms of the deal haven’t been announced, but RTÉ were previously looking for €35,000 for the 6 month tie up.

“Spry Finance is delighted to sponsor Marty in the Morning on RTÉ lyric FM as we feel it is the perfect fit for our brand and our customers. Our customers believe in living a greater life in later life and Marty brings the joie de vivre that we know is so important to our customers who enjoy the blend of news and travel updates from Marty.”
Ailish McGlew, Head of Marketing at Spry Finance

It’s great to see brands supporting radio in this way so hopefully the deal will go well for Spry Finance.

Read the story here

Quick Bits

Nobby is leaving the Strawberry Alarm clock on FM104

RTE are launching Kidcast, a new magazine show for kids

BBC Breakfast journalist Kate Varley is returning to Ireland for a job with RTÉ

Applications for the Irish media Literacy Awards have now closed

LiveLine was the most complained about show of 2022 on Irish Radio

And that’s the summary for this week. Come back to radio land next week for more radio news📻 and be sure to follow us on Twitter and Instagram for extra stories.

This week in radio 12/11/2022 (yo Bauer, why you gotta buy a radio station on the same week as the JNLR’s? That’s too much radio news for one week)

Lots happens in the radio industry each week so here’s a summary of the week we just enjoyed.

Here’s what happened

The rumours are true! Bauer have agreed a deal to buy Cork’s Red FM.

The deal is subject to regulatory approval, but if everything goes to plan Bauer will then be owners of Red FM, 98FM, Spin 1038, Spin South West, Today FM, and Newstalk.

What does this mean in practice though. There are a number of safe bets, and also lots of things we can have fun speculating about.

Safe bets

Red FM will become part of Goloud. Goloud is the app housing all of Bauers audio content, so Red FM will certainly become part of that platform.
Cash machine is on its way. The cash machine is a premium rate text to play game that’s aired across Bauers network of stations. It’s almost certain to make its way to Cork if this deal goes through. This may result in cash amounts up for grabs increasing across the network, but we’ll need to wait and see. The Cork market has previously had a similar format called Cash Call, but that hasn’t really been around since the former UTV network became Wireless Group.
Red FM sport is about to get the Off The Ball treatment. It will be interesting to see where this leaves brands like The Big Red Bench, It might become part of OTB, it might get sent to the sideline never to be seen again. No matter what though it’s safe to assume Red FM will develope a tighter relationship with OTB.

While obviously all this is speculation, these all seem like relatively obvious things to expect from Bauer in this case.

There are still lots of questions though. Is The Neil Prendeville Show going to face the same treatment as Dublin Talks and just get axed? Will we start seeing networked shows across the station? Could the Red FM brand become an extension of Spin South West? That’s only the start of it. From the Today FM/Newstalk studios in cork to the RedExtra brand, who knows what potentially huge changes might be on the horizon.

No matter what way you look at it, there are some crazy times ahead for a market that really hasn’t changed much in recent years. It’s the biggest change in Cork since KC joined 96FM from Red, and arguably the impact of this Bauer move will be bigger.

What are your thoughts? Is this a good or bad deal? What do you expect to change? Go let us know over on our Instagram story now.

Read the story here

JNLR Time

Usually this would be our top story, but it’s just been a crazy week in the radio world. Anyway, New JNLR numbers were released this week, so it’s time to find out who’s going up and down.

As always we don’t have the time to cover all stations, but we’ll include links you can use at the end if you want more details.

In general this wasn’t a great book for Radio 1. Nothing has changed massively at the station, but it seems they are suffering a loss in listeners that until now was only seen in the afternoons.

451,000 are listening to Morning Ireland, that’s down a huge 22,000 in a single book
Tubridy has an audience of 344,000 he’s down from 369,000
Claire Byrne now sits at 331,000 listeners, she’s down 19,000
The big news here though is Ray darcy’s show continuing it’s massive decline. the show is down 18,000 to 179,000

It’s unclear what’s going wrong here, but clearly there was either an over estimation in the last book or radio 1 has started to drop listeners.

What’s clear though is Ray Darcy is having trouble, and RTÉ have noticed. The head of RTÉ Radio 1 spoke about the show to the Independant.

“We changed the production team on it in the last while. It has one of the best series producers and also one of the best new producers. We got two new superb researchers so what we would be more looking at is the structure of the programme rather than the content. That’s where we think we probably have to go with it.”
head of RTÉ Radio 1 Peter Woods

If this continues for another book some tough decisions will need to be made.

2FM had more of a mixed bag, rather than dropping huge listeners like Radio 1, shows that you might expect to have seen growth have remained the same.

2FM breakfast is up 1,000 with listenership of 124,000
Jennifer Zamparelli has 131,000 listeners, that’s down 7,000
It’s the same story for Tracey Clifford, she’s now at 120,000 after also dropping 7,000
The 2 Johnnies have had no change this book staying on 122,000

2FM isn’t facing the same disaster that Radio 1 saw this book, but they would probably have been hoping for better. This isn’t really too bad for now as long as it doesn’t become a trend.

Basically everyone’s down on today FM except relative newcomer Ray Foley

Breakfast is down 2,000 and now has 199,000
Dermot & Dave are down 5,000 now slipping beneath 200,000 at 198,000 listeners
Pamela Joyce has dropped 4,000 and now sits at 130,000
Matt Cooper has lost a scary 10,000 listeners and now has 164,000
The big news is Ray though, he’s crushing his slot and is now up 6,000 to 149,000

Fair play Ray, that’s good going

Newstalk also had a mixed bag, but nothing too disastrous. Some shows are up, some are down, so everything all kind of evens out.

Newstalk Breakfast with Ciara Kelly and Shane Coleman is up 1,000 and now has an audience of 147,000
177,000 tune in for Pat Kenny, that’s down 7,000
Lunchtime Live is down 3,000 to 108,000, so not a massive drop, but a drop all the same.
Moncrieff now has 90,000, he’s up 3,000.
The Hard Shoulder is up 1,000 and sits at 156,000.

Really mixed bags for Bauer stations this time, but it could be worse. It’s not a Radio 1 style catastrophe which is a good thing I guess.

Links

It’s hard to know what to think this time around as it really could have gone better if we’re honest. We can only hope for an improvement in the next book.

Check out the links below for more details.

Radio Today

Independant

Goss

Eoghan in the 2FM studios before the drama hit

The boss at 2FM has spoken about Eoghan McDermott’s future on the station, as well as a number of recent goings on for station presenters.

Eoghan McDermott left 2FM in February 2021, after aligations were made against him. The person who made those aligations later retracted them in a legal letter, and Eoghan has now began rebuilding his career following the incident.

He has recently returned to naration duties on Love Island Australia, so naturally enough the question came up about a possable return to 2FM. RTÉ 2fm boss Dan Healy spoke about that this week, saying that at least for now the 2FM schedual is locked down.

“His contract ran out with us at that time and the schedule is now locked down. The station is now moving in a certain direction with talent like the 2 Johnnies, the Breakfast Show trio Doireann Garrihy, Donncha O’Callaghan and Carl Mullen alongside Jen Zamparelli and Tracy Clifford. I don’t see this schedule moving. I think we made the right decisions with regards to the talent. We have a really nice, strong daytime schedule,”
RTÉ 2fm boss Dan Healy

It will be interesting to see if another station does take Eoghan on in the next while, but it looks like 2FM is out of the picture at least for now.

Dan also addressed other stuff this week including a challenge finding male presenters, as well as Lottie Ryan being disapointed after not getting the hosting job for Dancing With The Stars.

You can read all that below

Read the story here.

Quick Bits

RTÉ newsreader Kasia Czernik is seeking €300,000 after she received inappropriate texts from a colleague

Production company Turnip + Duck have won the Society Award at the NCBI Vision Awards for their RTEJr Radio podcast Maddie + Triggs. (disclosure, I work for NCBI but had no involvement in any of these projects)

Today FM switched to music for a bit due to a fire alarm activation at the studios

The Christmas FM song contest is back

And that’s the summary for this week. Come back to radio land next week for more radio news📻 and be sure to follow us on Twitter and Instagram for extra stories.

This Week In Radio 30/7/2022 (It’s JNLR time Again)

Lots happens in the radio industry each week so here’s a summary of the week we just enjoyed.

Here’s What Happened

It’s that time again!!! This week we got the latest JNLR listenership numbers, so it’s time to see who’s up and who’s down.

Had enough JNLR stuff already this week? Click here to skip it👇

Radio 1 has had a mixed bag this time around. Some shows are up, and some are down, it probably all equals out really. The good news for RTÉ here is really the weekend schedual where they have seen some very healthy growth.

It seems they’re having some issues with weekday afternoons, which we’ll discuss more in a minute, but first let’s look at the numbers.

Morning Ireland is up 14,000 for a very healthy 473,000 listeners, compared with 4,59,000 back in February
Tubridy has also gained listeners even if it is a smaller jump. He’s now at 3,69,000 compared to 366,000, a jump of 3,000
Claire Byrne has hit 350,000 listeners which is an increase of 4,000
LiveLine continues its decline, and it’s going fast too. Joe now stands at 332,000, that’s down another 11,000, bringing his total losses in the last 3 books to a huge 72,000
Ray Darcy is really not having a good time either as he now sits at 197,000. This is the slots lowest number since Ray took the slot in 2015, so surely serious questions are going to be asked here.
Thankfully for radio 1 the losses are just for the middle of the day, as drive time is up 1,000 to 216,000

So all in all a mixed bag. Head of Radio 1 Peter Woods spoke to the Irish Times about the numbers, and it’s clear that he has some concerns about the afternoons.

“We are not 100 per cent sure on the afternoons, but we have seen a drift off from the end of News at One, and that peters out at the end as well, It’s hard to see what is happening and it’s hard to see where those listeners are going.”
Head of Radio 1 Peter Woods

He also hinted that they’ll be taking a closer look at the situation after the next book in the autumn.

This could bring a lot of changes, but if this continues for another book I wouldn’t be surprised to see Ray getting replaced by the likes of Kathryn Thomas or Brendan O’Connor. Interesting times ahead.

Radio 1 had a great run at the weekend, so you can check out the Irish Times link for more on that.

Read that here

Last time we spoke about 2FMs listener numbers, they’d just hired the 2 Johnnies, and a major TV campaign was on air promoting 2FM rising. It doesn’t seem like this has given 2FM any insane boost in listeners, but at the same time important shows are growing.

2FM breakfast now has 123,000 which is an increase of 9,000-12,000. The only major change to the show in the last while has been Clock Blockers, so maybe a chance to win €10,000 is bringing in new listeners. (Note, there seems to be two sets of numbers available here so there was obviously an error at some point, the show definitely has 123,000 listeners which is an increase, but the extent of the gains has some small variation across reports. We will update article once we establish the correct info.
Jennifer Zamparelli has 138,000 listeners which is down 3,000. It’s still an okay number though, not catastrophic.
Tracey is down 2,000 and now has 127,000 listeners. Again, not catastrophic but certainly not ideal.
The 2 Johnnies have 122,000 listeners which is a good place to start, it will be more interesting to look at this in autumn when we can start looking at trends

I think 2FM will be fun to watch over the next while as they seem to be at the start of a new strategy. It will probably take time before we see anything extremely interesting but these numbers will be useful to compare in autumn.

RTE radio’s numbers can be found in detail here

Newstalk is doing very well with most shows gaining listeners. Any losses are small and it doesn’t seem the station has any major downward trends. That said, a few numbers from their press release might throw people slightly. Instead of comparing book to book, they went from year to year. They were very transparent about this in fairness, but we’ll stick to going book by book so it’s easier to compare with other stations.

Newstalk Breakfast has reached 146,000, that’s up 8,000 from 138,000 back in February
Pat hasn’t budged, he’s still got 148,000 listeners which is the same as last book
Lunchtime live is down 3,000 and now sits at 111,000
Moncrieff now has 88,000 listeners that’s up 11,000. This is a good continuation of a recovery we first saw in the last book.
The hard shoulder is also up. The show gained 4,000 and now sits at 155,000

Really not bad. Newstalk only really had a miner drop with Lunchtime Live, and at least for now that’s not a trend. There is the risk of news exhaustion hurting the station slightly in the future but they seem to have avoided this for the most part so far.

Check out all the details from Newstalk here

Today FM have made changes recently and all seems relatively okay. They are still well ahead of 2FM and that looks unlikely to change anytime soon.

The problem is they have changed so much that any comparisons to previous books are basically irrelevant. For now we’re just going to share numbers without comparisons, and we’ll get more accurate trends in a few months time. All in all things seem healthy though.

Ian Dempsey has 201,000 listeners or as Today FM put it, more than 200,000
Dermot & Dave bring in 203,000 listeners. It will be interesting to see if they can stay above that 200,000 line
143,000 listen to Ray Foely. that’s a big jump for him after years at RedFM, so I’m sure he’s happy enough
Pamela Joyce is entertaining 134,000, as of now there’s 7,000 between her and Tracey over on 2FM so she’ll be trying hard to maintain that lead.
174,000 tune into Matt Cooper at drive time

Generally these are very healthy numbers, we’ll need to wait and see how things go over the next while but it doesn’t look like Bauer will be crying anytime soon.

Today FMs numbers are here

Other stations

Unfortunately I’m not going to be able to cover every station as much as I’d love to. Here are links to a number of JNLR articles so you can hopefully find what your looking for.

I’d also recommend having a look at the JNLR hashtag on Twitter. some presenters share their numbers using that hashtag so it might be worth a look.

Overall everything seems to be remaining stable. For those of you who got good results congratulations, and for those who didn’t don’t be too hard on yourself. Every book tells a different story, so everyone will have another chance to impress in 3 months. Keep doing your best and you’ll do just fine.

In other news

TalkSport have secured Irish broadcast rights for the premier League. The new 3 year deal covers the 2022/23, 2023/24 and 2024/25 seasons.

Talksport is available in the apps of all the Irish wireless group stations, and Irish coverage is usually produced from the 96FM studios in Cork. It will be interesting to see how the sports broadcast space evolves in Irish radio, as if Talksport or OTB took GAA radio rights for example things might change drastically.

For now though, Urban Media are selling sponsorship and advertising packages for the premier League coverage, trying to make some of the money back.

Read the story here

Finally this week, the BAI have announced a €2 million sound and vision round for Irish language projects.

This round is funded by the department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport, and Media, and is open to independent producers of television and radio projects.

In order to increase gender equality in the broadcast industry, this round requires that at least 50% of the actors or contributors on projects be women, and at least 50% of the creative team must be female also.

Any extra funding going into public service content production is a good thing for the industry, so hopefully we see more of this going forward.

The BAI point out that they will continue to allocate between 20% and 25% of funding towards Irish language projects in regular sound and vision rounds also, so we should certainly see and hear more Gaeilge on air over the next while.

The Irish language really gives you a great advantage in media, so I might need to re download Duolingo and get that skill back😂

You can get more info here

Quick Bits

RTE JR Radio has been nominated in a number of categories at the Irish Podcast Awards

96FMs best of Cork Awards are back, and voting is now open

Bauer is getting a new People and Culture director who will work across all European operations

A former RTE journalist for RnaG was sentenced this week for the sexual assault of a woman while she slept

RTE Radio 1 has some new shows for the summer

MEP Clare Daly says she has felt mischievously misrepresented by the establishment media

Support

If you’ve been affected by any of the topics discussed in this weeks radio land, you can visit the HSE website linked below for information and support

HSE info on rape and sexual assault

And that’s the summary for this week. Come back to radio land next week for more radio news📻 and be sure to follow us on Twitter and Instagram for extra stories.