JNLR

doomed

While it may not be perfect JNLR is the best indicator we have available to us. Since advertisers rely on it as the basis for their investment it must have something going for it.

Qualitative analysis is all very well but if that analysis takes place within our own herd it is going to be skewed. It would be in mine too. However broad we think our circle, we all tend to have more in common with our family, friends and colleagues than we do with the population at large.

As for the existence of a silent Marty army whose love of the venerable presenter dare not speak its name, that sounds a bit unlikely. I can't see how a population that admits to listening to Ryan Tubridy, albeit in declining numbers, would baulk at any admission. What is much more likely for MITM is that average listenership is as low as reported but occasional listenership is a lot higher, as is presumably the case with many small audience programmes. Even MITM critics will listen in from time to time if only to confirm their view as to the full exent of the show's awfulness.

What would be really interesting to see is the book on book graphs for the past few years. That would show not just measure a programme against itself but also compare it with what was there before in the same timeslot.

PacMan

It would seem that Sheldon from "The Big Bang Theory" is amongst us.:D
(Great show btw)

eiresandra

Lol @ Pacman.

I think if Hugo's argument were to be true, it would be much more biased against the so-called low-brow shows such as Adrian Kennedy (which gets a huge audience in every JNLR). Whilst it isn't my morning choice, why would there be any shame or embarrassment in admitting to listening to the Lyric FM Breakfast Show?

PacMan

eiresandra wrote: »

Lol @ Pacman.

Whilst it isn't my morning choice, why would there be any shame or embarrassment in admitting to listening to the Lyric FM Breakfast Show?

I often listen to Marty. Where else would you get the "Chorus of the Hebrew slaves" followed by Ella Fitz.....:)
I also enjoy listening to the tones of Gaybo on a sunday afternoon.
Its a damp grey day,
Gaybo playing a little jazz, his style of presentation, just perfect for a lazy day.

(BTW, I referred in an earlier post to Sheldon as the style of writing by a previous poster was very similar to that of a sentence by the said Sheldon)

Almaviva

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

Thanks GSF, but something has to be the cause of the anomaly.

Not if there is no anomaly. Where is your evidence for one ? You will have to do better than cite the love a few of your friends share for the programme.

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

I am not certain that there might not even be some effect arising from the low end of the listenership range, of 3 - 6 % of listeners;

The figure is 3% for Lyric, not 3-6%. If the there is such a margin of error in the figures as you are trying to find, it is also possible that the error operates on the high side. And that the true listenership figures are only 1-2%. Or even zero, in the case of MITM. Yourself and your friends being statistically meaningless, and only the 'background noise' (which to my understanding of it adds rather than subtracts from measured data), providing the figures in the JNLR data.

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

Incidentally, there is considerable calm and confidence in RTE Lyric FM HQ in relation to the listenership, and I think they may be relying on other, possibly more satisfying, data sources.

How do you know this? Time to come clean and explain your particular links (if they exist beyond trolling) to Lyric. No objective reader could consider your posts anything other than severly biased towards Lyric FM, its management, the content (musical, interviews, correspondence) of MITM, and MW himself.

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

I, for one, know hardly anyone in a large circle of personal acquaintance who does not listen to MITM for at least part of the broadcast time.

Then you cannot deny that you and your circle must be the statistical anomaly itself. Extrapolating your observation, then surely Lyric would have close to 100% reach. We hardly need to argue about the implausibility of that.

HugoBradyBrown

PacMan wrote: »

I often listen to Marty. Where else would you get the "Chorus of the Hebrew slaves" followed by Ella Fitz.....:)
I also enjoy listening to the tones of Gaybo on a sunday afternoon.
Its a damp grey day,
Gaybo playing a little jazz, his style of presentation, just perfect for a lazy day.

(BTW, I referred in an earlier post to Sheldon as the style of writing by a previous poster was very similar to that of a sentence by the said Sheldon)

Yes, and wasn't Gay superb this afternoon on RTE Lyric FM? It's good news, too, about the 3-CD set of The Irish Voice compiled by Brendan Balfe that he mentioned and, on the basis of the John Skehan recording from it that he played, I would agree with him that it would be a most acceptable Christmas gift for anyone with an interest in quality radio, or in good voice production. Brendan would bring the numbers up for practically any show, if he hadn't been so unceremoniously bumped off the air on grounds of chronological age, the worst possible justification for retiring someone.

What, I wonder, are Gay's listenership figures? It should be a valuable segment of the audience to reach, I would imagine, with the unmoneyed sifted out. (Incidentally, he mentioned during the show staying recently in some very expensive but excellent value and high quality hotel in Connemara, but I missed the name: if anyone knows what one it is, perhaps they could PM me, please? Sounded magical: roaring fires in every room, nooks and crannies like a Hallowe'en tale, and so forth.)

(I'm still looking into who Sheldon is, by the way; the entire household is searching for information, in fact!)

Good and very gratifying to hear that Marty's programme has such a following here, too, by the way!


Hugo Brady Brown

BrianD

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

Thanks again BrianD for shining a searching light when a post seemed opaque or incomplete. Let me explain. 'Qualitative' comes in two distinct, if related, flavours in my argument.

The 'qualitative' point about RTE Lyric FM in the morning is that brute numbers are only a rough-and-ready indicator of success. On a qualitiative measure, the morning programme is a soaraway success; this means on both a qualitative assessment of the output, and a qualitative assessment of the impact it has on the listener. The listener is clearly moved and affected to a greater degree by, for example, MITM on RTE Lyric FM at 8 am, than she or he is by something on a pop or ex-pirate station.

Beyond that, however, is the self-evident fact that the JNLR survey results are for some reason failing to reflect an accurate picture of the RTE Lyric FM audience; the reasons for this deserve to be teased out and, if possible, addressed in the surveys. Here, too, some qualitative or subjective research may be of value. Aside from mere statistical factors coming into play when listenership figures are shown to be at the lowish end of the spectrum, clearly there are those rather elusive, somewhat intangible subjective factors that impel respondents towards false reporting of their listening choices.

In the case of MITM, in particular, there is the skewing factor of the contempt with which the programme is treated, both by professional radio critics, and by bien pensant opinion formers elsewhere. Unless the survey can be corrected for such biases, it will lead astray naive readers of the numbers. My personal intuition is that listenership for MITM is probably closer to the 100 000 mark in the latter stages of the show, to extrapolate with well-founded confidence from my personal knowledge.


Hugo Brady Brown

I would disagree. I would be inclined that that figures are as they are.

But you are right that these figures are quantities and indicate nothing about quality of programming.

However, the same rules about most things in life apply to radio. For example, healthy food will only attract a certain type of person while the rest will go for a burger. Lyrics has a specialist output so will never be of mass appeal. Lyric may well be "super serving" those who chose to listen. Providing the best possible programming for that audience. Morning Ireland by nature of it's broader appeal will reach bigger numbers.

The JNLR is a numbers game as what an advertiser needs to know the reach of their message and the types of audience that will hear it. That's not teh sole criteria for making a decision to advertise but the other criteria are more subjective in nature or based on other research. For example, the red tops sell more on Sundays than the Sunday Business Post but I know what sort of audience I'm reaching with the SBP.

Furthermore, it is very difficult to tell how engaged a listener is at any time to the programming. You suggest that the level of engagement for pop radio listening is less that for Lyric. This may be so but it is also likely for a Lyric listener who is on their morning school run. All the depends on the individual listener.

All the JNLR tells us is how many listen to any station at any time but nothing about the quality of programming that they are listening to. Each station has to set it's own standards for programming success but if it is a measure of the number of listeners tuned in then only the JNLR data can be used.

HugoBradyBrown

BrianD wrote: »

I would disagree. I would be inclined that that figures are as they are.

But you are right that these figures are quantities and indicate nothing about quality of programming.

However, the same rules about most things in life apply to radio. For example, healthy food will only attract a certain type of person while the rest will go for a burger. Lyrics has a specialist output so will never be of mass appeal. Lyric may well be "super serving" those who chose to listen. Providing the best possible programming for that audience. Morning Ireland by nature of it's broader appeal will reach bigger numbers.

The JNLR is a numbers game as what an advertiser needs to know the reach of their message and the types of audience that will hear it. That's not teh sole criteria for making a decision to advertise but the other criteria are more subjective in nature or based on other research. For example, the red tops sell more on Sundays than the Sunday Business Post but I know what sort of audience I'm reaching with the SBP.

Furthermore, it is very difficult to tell how engaged a listener is at any time to the programming. You suggest that the level of engagement for pop radio listening is less that for Lyric. This may be so but it is also likely for a Lyric listener who is on their morning school run. All the depends on the individual listener.

All the JNLR tells us is how many listen to any station at any time but nothing about the quality of programming that they are listening to. Each station has to set it's own standards for programming success but if it is a measure of the number of listeners tuned in then only the JNLR data can be used.

Thank you, BrianD, for this response, which introduces me to some interesting ideas. "Super serving" may well be a standard analytical term in economics and in consumer research, but it is new to me here and it provides a really valuable way of understanding how a service and its consumer might be interacting. It has a potential downside in that it may create the impression of elitism or of the misappropriation of public funds for the 'super serving' of a minority, and so I would be reluctant to base public argument on it (or arguments against the internal bean counters). However, I am enlightened by this observation.

I appreciate also Almaviva's point that my own 'informal focus group' sample may be skewed towards 'people like me'. However, I am perplexed by how I tend to get similar results from places like Post Office queues on pension day, or in the NCT test centre, or anywhere else I open up on the topic to people I do not know. It really does seem to be the case that the reported figures here are understated by a considerable margin. (Might there be a regional factor involved that is not being picked up? Or is the age profile of the JNLR sample defective? Or do respondents not take morning radio responses all that seriously? There has to be some external factor that is depressing the returns, I think.)



Hugo Brady Brown

BrianD

The JNLR study is designed to be representative of the population. You find more about the survey on the IPSOS MRBI site who have the research contract.

JNLR survey is a pen and paper survey done in home. Not in the street, online or over the phone. Every survey methodology will have it's pros and cons. Some say that this methodology favours older people who live in houses (as opposed to apartments) and so on. The JNLR folks maintain taht there is checks and balances to negate this.

I didn't mean 'super serving' in that the service may be over resourced but in the sense that the programme team are doing a great job.

HugoBradyBrown

BrianD wrote: »

I didn't mean 'super serving' in that the service may be over resourced but in the sense that the programme team are doing a great job.

Thanks BrianD, I understood what you meant by 'super serving'. It's just that it's a new concept to me, but one that I think 'fills a much needed gap', as they say. It is just that linear utilitarians will be inclined to argue that if the quantum of happiness that is being derived by one group in society from a service paid for by the revenues of all, through that group being 'super served', there is something self-evidently inequitable and wrong about it. They might then begin to try to balance the scales, to reduce every consumer of the radio product to the same immiserated level of radio provision.

The worry would be that, with RTE Lyric FM doing a great job, the bean counters might make an assault on the service, and diminish it, and thus impoverish the listeners.


Hugo Brady Brown

GSF

Latest figures out today http://www.bai.ie/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/JNLR-Results-May-2012.pdf

Rising tide doesnt lift all boats though
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0503/breaking50.html
Tubridy's still beached

NT figures:

Breakfast 138,000
Lunchtime with Jonathan Healy 66,000
Moncrieff with Sean Moncrieff 98,000
The Right Hook with George Hook 130,000
Off the Ball 48,000

Ivan leaves on a high. Probably see them drop under the new team.

blue4ever

Q hour segments

Badabing

GSF wrote: »

Latest figures out today http://www.bai.ie/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/JNLR-Results-May-2012.pdf

Rising tide doesnt lift all boats though
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0503/breaking50.html
Tubridy's still beached

NT figures:


Ivan leaves on a high. Probably see them drop under the new team.

No Tom Dunne figures mmmm.....

JonathanAnon

GSF wrote: »

Tubridy's still beached

Tubridy, pictured in that Irish Times article with his only listeners..

Ivan leaves on a high. Probably see them drop under the new team.

yeah I agree, Shane Coleman is not good... and there is no rapport between him and Chris..

I just cant believe that George Lee or John Murray are ahead of Pat Kenny... John Murray's Show is like the private radio station some eccentric has set up in his garage...

GSF

blue4ever wrote: »

Q hour segments

ouch. That 9-11am dip is Tubridy 2012 versus Tubridy 2011 now so no excuses for him.

NT press release doesnt mention Tom Dunne so he must be flat or down. Dunne plus Breakfast must be the big worry for NewsTalk.

On Today fm D'Arcy is up 249k versus 172k for Tub's so will we see a summer exit or will his roadshow do the trick?

EchoO

So it's 1,000 steps forward and 4,000 back for Tubridy. Just proof, as if any was needed, that he is not going to be able to turn this around.

Sierra 117

There's no way 2fm management can keep burying their heads in the sand. They're going to have to do something about Tubridy.

DEFTLEFTHAND

48,000 for Newstalk's OTB seems very poor, is that figure up or down on the last rating?

EchoO

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

48,000 for Newstalk's OTB seems very poor, is that figure up or down on the last rating?

It's very good for that time of day, it would be over twice the audience that RTE's Sport @ 7 would have and by far the most listened to radio programme between 7pm and 10pm. I think it's 2,000 down on the last time, but it had been up 10,000 the book before that.

Caledonman

Sierra 117 wrote: »

There's no way 2fm management can keep burying their heads in the sand. They're going to have to do something about Tubridy.

Oh they will keep burying their heads. As Yvonne Judge, who is number 2 or 3 in there said to me quote 'they are at the cutting edge of radio production'!!
That says it all. Ostrich Syndrome is what it is called..

Caledonman

Badabing wrote: »

No Tom Dunne figures mmmm.....

Tom Dunne gained 2000 more and is at 73,000

see http://businessetc.thejournal.ie/rte-gains-ground-in-latest-radio-listenership-figures-2011-02/

EchoO

Caledonman wrote: »

Tom Dunne gained 2000 more and is at 73,000

see http://businessetc.thejournal.ie/rte-gains-ground-in-latest-radio-listenership-figures-2011-02/

I would check the date on that Caledonman.

padd b1975

EchoO wrote: »

It's very good for that time of day, it would be over twice the audience that RTE's Sport @ 7 would have and by far the most listened to radio programme between 7pm and 10pm. I think it's 2,000 down on the last time, but it had been up 10,000 the book before that.

Less than 24,000 for Sport at 7?

I would never have believed it.
Seems very low coming off the back of Drivetime.

Caledonman

EchoO wrote: »

I would check the date on that Caledonman.

you are corrrect... I was looking at the date in the top right hand corner.. apologies!!

bbability

Fm104 and Nova seem to have had good JNLR's today. Nobby and Jim Jim up again. Andy Preston up also.

EchoO

padd b1975 wrote: »

Less than 24,000 for Sport at 7?

I would never have believed it.
Seems very low coming off the back of Drivetime.

RTE never give Sport @ 7's JNLR figures, but an newspaper article I read about year ago put it at around 25,000. I guess people tend to turn off the radio and switch on the TV at that time of night.

blue4ever

31,000

http://www.ilevel.ie/media-blog/radio/101885-radio-programme-listnership-2012-1

overthenest

folks where is it possible to get the full jnlr listing? how did i radio do? colm hayes?

RadioRetro

Post #162 ^^ has a link.

bbability

Anybody got figures for Baz and Lucy? I've had the unfortunate experience of hearing 5 minutes of their show. It ha to be heading in the wrong direction?