Latest news with #JNLRs
Irish Independent
3 days ago
- Business
- Irish Independent
Sarah Carey: Radio can engage us but JNLR figures will never be a true measure of its success
The JNLRs are driving Conall Ó Móráin mad. Ó Móráin produces brilliant Irish podcasts including That Great Business Show and the legal series, The Fifth Court, presented by Mark Tottenham and Peter Leonard.
Irish Times
20-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
Britain sees ‘new chapter' after EU deal
Britain's declared a ' new chapter ' in its relationship with the European Union, which in turn hailed the UK's new 'positive energy' towards the bloc, after the two sides struck a landmark deal over issues including trade, defence, travel and food exports. Mark Paul and Jack Power report. Mark meanwhile breaks down what is involved, and why the deal came about in the first place. Eoin Burke-Kennedy meanwhile looks at the ramifications for Ireland. Last week we saw the latest round of JNLRs measuring radio ratings. The report showed young people are listening to more than three hours of radio per day. In his column, Hugh Linehan looks at whether the survey adds up. Ciara Kelleher went on trial twice in relation to the collapse of Custom House Capital . After her last trial ended without a verdict in February, she speaks to Conor Lally about her experience. READ MORE The High Court has formally signed off on the appointment of an examiner to the company behind the Workman's Club. Fiachra Gallagher reports. As the yield on US 10 year debt hits 5 per cent, Cantillon looks at how the bond markets may box in US president Donald Trump's agenda while also looking ahead to this week's Bank of Ireland AGM and an expected pensioner protest. In Your Money, Fiona Reddan looks at who is applying for social housing . It's not always who you may expect. Dominic Coyle meanwhile resolves a reader question on and if social welfare fraud dies with the death of a person. Ryanair profits fell 16 per cent last year amid lower air fares. Barry O'Halloran and Colin Gleeson report the numbers. Barry also analyses why those lower airfares are unlikely to stay that way. 'Increasingly urgent' concern around the potential subversion of Ireland's electoral system is to be investigated by the incoming Oireachtas committee on Artificial Intelligence(AI), which is likely to feed into a forthcoming renewal of Government strategy on cyber security. Mark Hilliard reports. Revolut, the global fintech with more than 55 million customers, said on Monday it is planning to file for a banking licence in France as it aims to make Paris its western European headquarters. Joe Brennan has the story. If you'd like to read more about the issues that affect your finances try signing up to On the Money , the weekly newsletter from our personal finance team, which will be issued every Friday to Irish Times subscribers.
Irish Times
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
The JNLRs tell us young people love radio. Seriously?
Last week, as usual, Irish media dutifully reported on the latest quarterly results from the Joint National Listenership Survey , better known as the JNLRs, which measure the popularity of every radio programme and every radio station in the State on a regular basis. You will be familiar with the drill: Headshots of well-known presenters. Boldface numbers indicating the thousands of listeners each one has gained or lost since the last survey. Every three months these numbers are published and every three months they are solemnly treated as a matter of some consequence. Last Thursday, for example, we were informed that the most dramatic winner was Oliver Callan's RTÉ Radio 1 show, with 355,000 listeners, an increase of 6,000 since the last survey. By my calculation, that's a rise of 1.69 per cent. No margin of error is provided. READ MORE The JNLRs are carried out by Ipsos MRBI , one of the world's most reputable polling firms. The results are based, we are told, on a representative sample of 16,000 Irish people over the age of 15. That is many multiples of the sample sizes used in the party political polls that are carried out by this newspaper and others. The methodology is long established and apparently robust. And the listenership numbers reported by the JNLRs are generally positive. One might even call them boosterish. Take the country's most popular radio show, Morning Ireland. Last week's JNLRs put its average listenership at 471,000. Back in 2015, with the breathless enthusiasm that characterises its press releases on the subject, RTÉ expressed its delight that Morning Ireland had recorded 433,000 listeners. Go back a further five years to 2010, when the twin death rays of smartphones and social media were just starting to be trained on Irish media, and Morning Ireland's number was 449,000. Most other high-profile shows (yes, they're all still around, albeit sometimes with different names attached) have seen similar stability or even slight growth over the past 15 years. Compared to what's happened to the rest of linear media over the same period, this is a remarkable feat. Newspaper print circulation has more than halved in the same timespan, while live television is down at least a third. Those declines were driven by inexorable technological and demographic shifts. Older audiences are loyal but dying. Younger ones prefer other options: YouTube , Spotify , podcasts, Instagram , TikTok et al. So that younger cohort should be a real pressure point as it is for TV, where it's dropping like a stone. However, last week's JNLRs tell a happier story: 68 per cent of 15-34-year-olds listen to radio each weekday. Daily weekday listening levels for what the JNLR press release describes as the 'hard-to-reach 15-24-year-old cohort' is also 'very impressive' (their words) with 64 per cent listening each weekday. Overall, 15-34 year-olds apparently listen to radio for 188 minutes every day. I don't know which teens and twentysomethings the researchers are talking to, but they're not the ones I know. They wouldn't know what to do with a radio if you handed them one. The idea they'd listen to it three hours a day is laughable. Business podcaster Conall O Móráin has been questioning the accuracy of these numbers without getting a satisfactory answer beyond 'large sample' and 'robust methodology'. His frustration is reflected in the title of the piece he posted on LinkedIn in response to last Thursday's survey: 'I'm giving up commenting on the JNLRs'. The post compares the JNLR's numbers with those of the highly reputable Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) survey, the national longitudinal study of children and young people, which is run by the Central Statistics Office . According to the GUI, 15-23-year-olds on average sleep for eight hours daily, are in education for eight more hours and view screens for six hours. 'Add in basics like eating, washing, sport and socialising and that's it,' O Móráin says. 'It's all over for the 24-hour day. Fifteen to 23 year olds just don't have time listen to radio – and certainly not for 188 minutes a day.' For years, O Móráin and a few others have been treating the JNLRs with scepticism. And for years, the radio and advertising industries who fund the survey have defended it. That is beginning to look untenable. Perhaps because the JNLRs are seen as a fluffy item with celebrity appeal and a handy narrative of who's up and who's down, the JNLRs have largely escaped serious scrutiny. After all, media companies have always engaged in puffery, massaging their circulation, web analytics and subscription numbers to show themselves in the best possible light. But the JNLRs are different, or should be. For one thing they claim to offer objective industry-wide data. For another, two of their sources of finance are the publicly funded RTÉ and the State media regulator Coimisiún na Meán . Both make much of their commitment to tackling misinformation wherever it occurs. So they might stir themselves to explore the glaring contradictions between the depiction of young adult lifestyles in the JNLRs and the reality which most of us can see with our own eyes and which is confirmed by the GUI research. If the survey results for 15-34-year-olds don't make sense – and that's what it looks like to me – then what price the rest of the JNLRs? If there is a problem with the methodology, such as (I'm being charitable here) a confusion between name recognition and actual time spent listening to a show, then how can we trust all those ups and downs for Morning Ireland and the rest? More to the point, why should we care? Even if these tiny shifts from survey to survey can be trusted and are of some use to broadcasters and advertisers, they're meaningless for the rest of us. It's hard not to see the whole thing as a dated marketing wheeze masquerading as a news item, with a side order of statistics that don't add up.
Irish Independent
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
JNLRs: Slight drop for Joe Duffy's Liveline as RTÉ breaks from tradition and issues casting call for successor
It is the preferred station for 13.9pc of listeners in that key demographic, according to the most recent Joint National Listenership Research (JNLRs). RTÉ will also be releasing more details of its 'expressions of interest' process when it comes to finding a worthy successor to Joe Duffy (69) on 'Liveline'. In a dramatic break from tradition, RTÉ will be putting out a casting call for a replacement for the iconic presenter. Last week saw Duffy announce his retirement from the station after 37 years, officially hanging up his mike on the popular show on Friday, June 27. 'We have put out an expression of interest in relation to Joe's successor,' a spokesperson told the Irish Independent. 'Joe is a stalwart in RTÉ and they are very big shoes to fill. So it will be exciting to see what will come about from the expressions of interest, the details of which we will announce in the coming weeks. Nothing is decided yet.' His permanent replacement will be confirmed by RTÉ in the autumn. Meanwhile, the latest JNLRs show that Radio 1's 'Morning Ireland' has gained 5,000 listeners when compared with last February's survey. It now stands at 471,000. Marking his first full year in the job is Oliver Callan, whose one-hour slot has added 6,000 listeners to bring it up to 355,00. This is also some 25,000 more on last year's listenership. Claire's Byrne's mid-morning show had a slight drop of 1,000 but remains steady at 348,000. Louise Duffy's music show is down 5,000 to stand at 223,000 while the News at One is also down some 10,000 with 297,000 listeners. The latest figures for 'Liveline' show a slight drop of 7,000 to bring it to 300,000, while Ray D'Arcy's slot is also down 2,000 to stand at 192,000. 'Drivetime' is also down 5,000 to stand at 221,000. Weekends are performing strongly for RTÉ Radio 1, given that Brendan O'Connor's Saturday show has gained an extra 5,000 listeners to bring it to 363,000. It is even stronger for his Sunday show, which has added 3,000 listeners to bring it to 369,000. This is the highest listenership for that particular slot in over 10 years. Miriam O'Callaghan's Sunday show has shown no change and remains a popular choice for 304,000 listeners. Reporting a huge jump of 16,000 is the Saturday morning show 'Playback', fronted and produced by Sinéad Mooney. Reporting on the best stories of the week, it now has an impressive 335,000 listeners. It's a different story on 2fm, which saw a massive overhaul of its schedule in recent weeks and this is reflected in the most recent JNLR's. 2fm Breakfast with Roz, Carl and Aisling is down 4,000 to 148,000 while Morning with Laura Fox is down 4,000 to 127, with Tracy Clifford is down 8,000 to 109,000 while 'Drive with Doireann Garrihy is at 133,000, down 12,000. She took over the 3-6pm slot at the end of February. On the commercial stations, weekdays are proving to be equally challenging. Newstalk Breakfast with Ciara Kelly and Shane Coleman has seen a slight drop of 1,000 down to 165,000. Pat Kenny's Show has shed 12,000 to stand at 224,000, while Lunchtime Live with Andrea Gilligan has dropped 5,000 down to 134,000. Sean Moncrieff's show is down 4,000 with 108,000 while The Hard Shoulder has gained 2,000 listeners to come to 153,000 while Off the Ball has lost 1,000 to come to 50,000. Weekends tell a more positive tale. Anton Savage has had a huge jump in 10,000 listeners for his Saturday slot which is now at 133,000, the biggest increase for any Newstalk show. His Sunday show is also strong, gaining 5,000 listeners to come to 133,000. Over on its sister station of Today FM, also owned by Bauer Media, the Ian Dempsey Breakfast Show is the only weekday show to see an increase. It has pulled in 2,000 listeners to come to 204,000. Dave Moore's mid-morning show has shed 4,000 to come to 193,000 while Louise Cantillon's lunchtime show has dropped 14,000 from the last survey. She now has 107,000 listeners. Also down is Ray Foley who had a drop of 11,000 to come to 153,000. The Last Word with Matt Cooper is also down, dropping 4,000 to stand at 163,000. It's a more positive story for weekends on Today FM, with Alison Curtis growing her audience by 7,000 to reach 177 for her Saturday slot. She has seen a huge increase for her Sunday show of 17,000 and is now at 174,000. Similarly, KC on Today FM has grown his Saturday show by 9,000 to reach 148,000 while Dara Quilty is up 14,000 for his Sunday show to come to 151,000.
