Piaras Kelly PR - Public Relations in Ireland

Paul McCabe has a good article in this month’s Business Plus magazine about the declining listenership in the Dublin marketplace. According to the Joint National Listenership Research (JNLR), listenership has dropped from 85% to 81% since 2000.

McCabe blames radio stations for all targeting the same audience, adults aged 15 to 34. In my opinion the stations’ position is all the more precarious for targeting such an audience because of their uptake in adoption in technology such as iPods or podcasting.

I’m a perfect example. I used to listen to radio, primarily the stations suffering the biggest losses - FM104 and 98FM. However, ever since I got my iPod I would never listen to those stations again. The only thing you’ll ever catch me listening to is Newstalk 106, and that’s because it’s the best thing on the radio

As people in my age group start to become more engrossed in technology, we are discovering that we have much more power over the media. We can now simply tune out. Tune into any Dublin pop station over the course of three hours and you’ll find that the same songs are played in almost the same order. Why would I listen to that station if I can have my iPod playing with a catalogue of thousands of songs set on shuffle?

Technology will force these stations to change and hopefully adapt to the new innovative tools emerging around them. As much as I praise Newstalk 106, I can’t listen to it as much as I want to. Could you imagine if they had a podcasting service? I would be signed up to it in a jiffy.

It’s all about fitting into your audience’s lives. I can’t listen to the Moncrieff show at 2.30pm, but I would definitely listen to it later that evening on my iPod. All forms of media are going to have to realise that they need to take a multifaceted approach to the customers. Organisations that adapt to emerging technologies will be in a far better position than those who ignore it.