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Monday 4 December 2017

How Many Facebook/Twitter Followers Does Your Station Have? Have You Been Conned?

Social media such as Whatsapp, Facebook and Twitter are at the heart of Irish radio station media presence as they keep listeners involved. Their online presence is another advertising revenue stream and can influence advertisers as they decide where to locate their cash. On Sunday December 3rd 2017, as the stations in a very competitive broadcasting landscape ramp up their Christmas advertising packages, we took a look at some of the Irish radio stations online presence and found some surprising results. These results do not include every radio station in Ireland just a representative selection and they are listed here in order of their Facebook Likes

Station Facebook Twitter
98 FM Dublin 695,923 145,000
iRadio Munster 580,816 102,000
Beat FM Munster 555,680 70,600
FM 104 Dublin 496,558 123,000
Today FM National 439,501 235,000
Spin 1038 Dublin 414,541 329,000
4FM National 401,900 13,100
RTE 2FM National 393,461 241,000
Spin South West Munster 262,941 81,800
Q 102 Dublin 172,237 15,300
Galway Bay FM Galway 135,279 11600
Newstalk National 121,794 203,000
Cork 96FM Cork 111,853 34,900
Christmas FM Temporary 102,063 89,700
Radio Nova Dublin 101,291 11,200
Sunshine Radio Dublin 98,015 2,645
WLR Waterford 70,629 16100
RTE Radio One National 42,257 110,000
Midlands 103 Midlands 37,282 3,839
MidWest Radio Mayo 31,719 11,400
Northern Sound Ulster 27,838 6,506
LMFM Louth 24,846 17600
KFM Kildare 23,322 10,700
Raidio Na Gaeltachta National 22,114 17,800
Ocean FM Sligo 20,561 6,920
Phever Pirate 12,473 1,634
Radio Maria Online 11,764 14,100
8Radio Temporary 9,620 6585
Klub FM Pirate 9,420 624
Spirit National 9,408 2,097
Tonik Pirate 8,362 353
RTE Gold Digital 6,885 1,921
Radio Na Life Dublin 6,818 7,727
Dublin City FM Dublin 6,111 8,454
Near FM Community 4,894 4,024
Radio Snowflake Online 3,018 571
Dublin Digital Radio Digital 2,694 1308
Cork Community Radio Community 2,573 19

98FM have over 695,000 likes for their page that equates to 58% of Dublin's population. To put that into perspective according to recent JNLR figures (Q1 2017) 820,000 people in Dublin listen to the radio every day. According to those figures 110,000 listen to 98FM on a daily basis that is just 1/6th of their facebook followers. The top ten stations were


Cork based pirate radio station Klub FM have more followers than Spirit Radio which broadcasts across the country and more followers than RTE digital station RTE Gold that has been receiving extra press coverage recently.

Twitter is another measurement stations can use to entice advertisers to their station. The more twitter followers your station has the more popular they are, right? Well NO. 
The top ten Twitter accounts from the above list were 

Spin 1038 Dublin 329,000
RTE 2FM National 241,000
Today FM National 235,000
Newstalk National 203,000
98 FM Dublin 145,000
FM 104 Dublin 123,000
RTE Radio One National 110,000
iRadio Munster 102,000
Christmas FM Temporary 89,700
Spin South West Munster 81,800

Spin topped the twitter top ten but that's not the full story. Spin 1038 was the second most listened to station after FM 104 in the Q1 JNLR figures with a 13% share (FM 104 had 16%) and they have 88,000 more twitter followers than the national state broadcaster's music channel 2FM. This should be music to an advertisers ear but when you drill into the 'followers' just like RTE Radio earlier this year when it was discovered that the 'followers' were padded with non existent followers (https://twitter.com/rtesecretpro/status/926051160972255232)then there is a fraud been perpetrated on advertisers and legitimate followers. These are screen shots of some of their phantom followers

Surely it should be the responsibility of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland to ensure that their licensed stations are not conning the public and businesses.