
Radio listenership grew to a record level last year in Ireland with almost 4m regular listeners, despite growing competition from other media.
The general election appeared to pull more listeners to the airwaves, with an increase in listenership in the final three months of last year.
Some 3.9m people listened to radio every week last year, an increase of 105,000 listeners compared to 2023, the Joint National Listenership Research (JNLR) figures for 2024 show.
RTÉ’s Morning Ireland remained Ireland’s most listened to radio programme with 466,000 listeners last year; followed by the Brendan O’Connor Show which made the biggest gains on RTÉ with 358,000 listeners on a Saturday and 366,000 listeners on Sundays.
The average weekday audience listening at any time between 7am to 7pm is now at 1,095,000 – the highest recorded average audience ever.
The JNLR/Ipsos report also found that 90% of all adults and 85% of 15–34-year-olds listen to radio every week.
The daily weekday audience reached 3.47m — an increase of 72,000 listeners.
And 69% of 15-34 year olds listened to radio each weekday.
More than 2.2m adults listened to their local or regional station every single weekday.
Some 12% of all radio listening is now through a connected device with 7% of all listening through a smart speaker while listening via a mobile device is at 3%.
For the younger 15 to 34 age cohort, 22% of all their radio listening is now through a connected device.
RTÉ radio had the most listened to stations for all adults, at 29.6% share.
RTÉ’s radio services reached more than 2m adults with RTÉ holding 18 of the top 20 radio programmes in Ireland.
RTÉ Radio 1 now reaches 1.3m listeners every week with gains of 24,000 listeners year-on-year. RTÉ 2FM has a weekly reach of 769,000, an increase of 29,000 listeners year-on-year.
RTÉ lyric fm now reaches 323,000 listeners every week.
Meanwhile, Bauer Media Audio Ireland retained its status as the largest radio group in Ireland with a combined Weekly Reach of over 2.2m and a combined Daily Reach of 1.5m million across its portfolio of national, regional and local stations which includes Today FM, Newstalk, 98FM, SPIN1038, SPIN South West, Cork’s Red FM, iRadio and Beat.
Newstalk’s The Pat Kenny Show retains its dominance as the most popular show on commercial radio with 237,000 listeners daily.
Today FM maintains its position as the No. 1 commercial radio station in Ireland with a weekly listening audience of 953,000.