There’s a Spring in our step this April in WLR as the station records the highest listenership figures in almost 14 years. On April 25th, the latest round of Joint National Listenership Research figures were released confirming that WLR has 64,000 people tuning in every week – that’s 7 in 10 adults in Waterford choosing WLR – with 43,000 listening every day.
All weekday shows recorded significant growth again on this book, with The Big Breakfast Blaa, The Lunchbox and The Drive Home gaining an extra 1,500, 2,500 and 3,500 listeners respectively since this time last year. Our flagship mid-morning show, Déise Today with Eamon Keane, had the biggest jump, recording a phenomenal increase of over 5,000 listeners since April 2017. This is testament to Eamon’s accomplished style of broadcasting and the excellent content deliverd daily by the Déise Today team.
The Shift with Ray C and The Late Show with John O’Shea also gained an extra 1,000 listeners on each show.
The weekends on WLR remain strong with a broad offering of music, magazine content, specialist shows and plenty of sport proving to be just what the Waterford audience wants to hear across Saturdays and Sundays.
This combined success across the week means WLR has increased its weekly reach from 65% to 69%; its daily reach from 40% to 46%; and its market share from 38% to 42% since April 2017.
Speaking about the excellent results, WLR’s Programme Director, Michael Byrne, said; “To increase the audience by 6% on the year is brilliant news. The share and reach are our strongest in five years and the team here should be very proud of the hard-work put in to get us there. The storm late last year and the snow last month really showed the importance of radio and the public service offering that local radio gives to listeners on a daily basis.”
Michael went on and praised the listeners to WLR “Radio is a listeners game and we are delighted to say that almost 70% of the people of Waterford City and County tune into WLR each week. We thank each and every one of them for their brilliant support.”
While WLR’s Managing Director, Des Whelan, says “The figures released for the period of April 2017 to March 2018 are among the best achieved in our stations history. It’s a real team effort from everyone on air, in programmes, production, news, sport, IT, marketing, sales and on our reception team.
Every programme Monday to Friday, from The Big Breakfast Blaa to The Late Show, has achieved a substantial increase year on year, while the weekend figures have remained steady.
The challenges for traditional media are mounting by the day, but WLR will always strive to deliver the best content for the people of Waterford and remain strong within the market.”
WLR continues to work on its overall strategy; with investments in research, technology and personnel, all of which has significantly improved the output on air and online. Waterford people continue to want the very latest local news and sport; they want the local angle on national and international stories; they love great music; and of course winning great prizes. By listening to WLR, people in Waterford get all of this delivered daily by a team of talented local presenters. We love Waterford. We are WLR.
Some handy facts about radio in Ireland.
1. 82% of people in Ireland listened to the radio yesterday.
2. On average, they spend in excess of 4 hours listening to radio every day.
3. When it comes to any audio listening in Ireland, live radio rules with 87.7%. This compares to 8% of owned music and 3.2% to Spotify.
4. Radio also dominates when compared with other media – 51% of all adults in Ireland used Social Media yesterday and just 40% read a national newspaper.
5. 276,000 people in Ireland listened to radio via either a radio station App or the Irish Radioplayer in the last seven days.
6. Irish radio’s strong on-air performance is complemented across its digital platforms with over 10.2 million social connections.
Ipsos MRBI JNLR 25th April 2018
