Forget the JNLR - the Lord will provide

Expunge

It seems that Spirit Radio have had the most spectacular success of any radio in their latest ,em, listenership survey......

From Sunday Business Post: A Spirited Showing by Colette Sexton.
July 24th, 2016

"According to recent figures from Amárach Research, the station has an average of 540,000 weekly listeners, up from 206,000 the previous year.
Rob Clarke, chief executive of the station, said people liked its unique offering. “During the worst years of the recession, people started to look for something different, and they felt our station had a positive feel about it,” he said"

"Spirit Radio has been using research companies to measure its audience instead of the joint national listenership survey (JNLR). Clarke said he was not going to rule out joining the JNLR, but added that membership was expensive, with a cost of about €20,000 a year."

And why would they join the JNLR, with spectacular figures like that?

L1011

If they claimed those listenership figures to the JNLR committee they'd probably be paying more than 20k - but its cheaper than that for stations with a more realistic audience for their scale!

Losty Dublin

540,000 listeners weekly would have them second only to Radio 1. For some bizarre reason I think they may have this figure slightly exaggerated

ceegee

Ye're very pessimistic lads, they carried out an online poll of 1000 people. sure everybody knows people dont lie on the Internet.

Id wonder how many of the 160 people read the first 3 letters and thought "yep, i listen to Spin, better tick that box"


To be honest I'd be shocked if half a million people know that station exists

blue4ever

Losty Dublin wrote: »

540,000 listeners weekly would have them second only to Radio 1. For some bizarre reason I think they may have this figure slightly exaggerated

I think it's a case of the "loaves and fishes" when it can to finding listeners - suddenly they appeared!

Csalem

With Alive! newspaper having a readership of 250,000, I can well believe this listenership of 540,000...

thesandeman

I think the Sunday Business Post have gremlins in their system. Their article on Joe Duffy's wages got mixed up with the one on Spirits listnenership.

L1011

Csalem wrote: »

With Alive! newspaper having a readership of 250,000, I can well believe this listenership of 540,000...

Circulation != readership - Alive may be fired through 250,000 doors and used in 249,950 hamster cages.

I'm not surprised. I reckon they might even benefit from the proximity of their broadcast frequency to RTE Radio 1.

Often I'd be tuning a radio manually, looking for Radio 1, and I'd come across some interesting comment or a weird evangelical statement on Spirit, and stay listening out of curiosity.

Expunge

Such a wild claim that Spirit Radio went from 206,000 to 540,000 weekly listeners in a year does not do the station any favours, nor the company Amárach Research.

The more they come out with rubbish like this, the more they'll been seen as a shower of headbangers, surely.

blue4ever

An old boss of mine warned me never to trust 'publishers statements' (we sell 100,000 each day etc). He said they were "as sincere as a kiss from a whore".

Unless we see the underlying research (which as it was so good would have done the rounds to agencies?) then I think you can completely discount that number.

Ed:

On their website

Growing, Active Listenership
Independent surveys by RedC in 2012,2013 and 2014 point to a strong consistent listenership. The most recent survey tells us we have a weekly listenership of over 200, 000 people across the nation

You'd think they would update it with the 'new' research!

Losty Dublin

Csalem wrote: »

With Alive! newspaper having a readership of 250,000, I can well believe this listenership of 540,000...

Similar to their on air contemporary, Alive aren't listed in the JNRR and as such their figures are wholly unsubstantiated.

http://newsbrandsireland.ie/data-centre/readership/

thejuggler

I wonder does spirit fm get promoted much by weekly church newsletters that parishioners pick up on their way into mass/church on a Sunday. this might prompt them to tune in and give it a listen.

Hard to believe those published figures though.

There is a station called life fm in Cork City which has almost an identical format to Spirit fm (to be fair to life fm they were around long before spirit radio)

Can't see how any of them are making ends meet (unless they are subsidised by church collections.)

L1011

thejuggler wrote: »

I wonder does spirit fm get promoted much by weekly church newsletters that parishioners pick up on their way into mass/church on a Sunday. this might prompt them to tune in and give it a listen.

Hard to believe those published figures though.

There is a station called life fm in Cork City which has almost an identical format to Spirit fm (to be fair to life fm they were around long before spirit radio)

Can't see how any of them are making ends meet (unless they are subsidised by church collections.)

I believe Spirit is too evangelical for most RCC churches. There's also UCB and Radio Maria with physical ops but digital/online only here.

A *lot* of money (and in some cases hardware) comes in from US donors for these.

wnolan1992

Is there any chance that they just multiplied an average quarter hour figure of just over 1,000 by 4, then by 17 (7am-midnight), and then by 7? That would give you 540,000 "listeners" in a week, while your actual listenership would be around 4,000/hour...

It smacks of those websites that claim "We've had 1,000,000 views this month!", who also fail to mention that probably 500,000 of those views are crawler bots.

L1011

The survey type they got done won't have an AQH. However even if that was it an AQH of 1000 is usually much less than 4000 total!

My local chipper has the next town overs demented Catholic newsletter and it has multiple Radio Maria references including a schedule in it but no Spirit. May not be representative though