JNLR 01/15

3 months gone already. Definitely less hype around the results this time around and the fading of interest from Joe Public in all but the absolute headline data is no bad thing. Still loads of hype within stations though and the promos and emails were flying out by Thursday night.

So what of the book? I'm in London during the week these days so it's the weekend when I get a chance to pore over this quarters statistical delights. As always ilevel.ie has all of the figures and analysis in great detail and in a clear form. Some interesting trends to watch in there.

My post is as always in good book/bad book and is focused on the Dublin market. Here's the summary:

Good book for: 98FM! That's the first time that has been written in quite some time. Having fallen rapidly and dramatically into 5% territory, they have now at least established an upward trend again which they will be very happy with. They are still only on 6.7% but this book at least brings them close to parity with their stablemates at Spin who have continued their own steady performance and are up .5% year on year which is impressive given that their target audience are not exactly radio's biggest fans at the moment.

Good book to for Today FM. This time last year they were only .1% ahead of 2FM in Dublin and in danger of being overtaken which would have been a commercial disaster for them as well as a major dent to Marconi house egos. They have pulled it around though and their lead is now well over 1%. While 2FM's performance in terms of share looks a bit ropey this time around it is important to keep an eye on their reach figures which have started to climb again. Reach eventually delivers share so expect a ratcheting up of the pressure from the IBI on the minister to try to get them to change format. Nobody is afraid of a failure.

Good again for Newstalk who have shown really impressive increases in the last year in particular. They have got good reach from Pat Kenny although they would prefer that to be closer to 180k but what is impressive is that they are keeping the listeners through the day. The imminent departure of George Hook is an obvious concern there, given that there doesn't seem to be an obvious replacement in the ranks at present. A cheque from Valetta may well be required for that one. Not such a good book for eternal whipping boys TXFM who have somehow managed to lose market share this time around, dropping back to 1.2% and continuing their dismal weekend performance. Any decent relaunch should get you a good bounce for a year at least but TXFM continue to suffer and the reason is simple: Listening to it as I type, I have no idea who it's audience is supposed to be.

Trends haven't been so good in Macken House for the last few books with both FM104 and Q102 having a bad run at the moment. FM104 were up over 12% this time last year which was phonomenal and their audience now is still very impressive but they will want to arrest that decline. There is an argument that this is just part of a cycle and it depends on how close 98 and Newstalk get before the cycle takes FM104 back up again. Q102's audience is notoriously soft and will probably bounce around like it is doing forever.

Good book for Castleforbes House too with Nova's share back to close to where it was last year but again impressive increases in reach over the last 12 months. The changes there have paid off and it's up to them now to convert those samplers to listeners. Looking at the trends, they seem to be grabbing quite a few listeners from FM104 which will be encouraging for them. Good news too for Sunshine who have continued to build audience with their easy-listening format. A shame for country music fans but Sunshine will feel vindicated. Decent performance for 4FM outside of Dublin and even in Dublin they are gaining a small amount of traction with a decent enough reach although their share is still poor and I'm not sure where its potential share lies.

Some drops for RTE Radio 1 too and they are showing a bit of a trend although ironically the one place where they thought they would lose listeners (Sean O'Rourke) is the one place where they have done very well. 303k nationally v 142k for Pat Kenny is good work. They will be confident enough that with the election and 1916 programming to come they will gain some bodies back.

Happy to answer any questions as always.

RadioAnalyst