Nicky Byrne has officially been crowned the king of 2FM – after triumphing in the great radio figures battle.
The Westlife star has 145,000 people listening into his new mid-morning show, which he co-hosts with Jenny Greene.
And it means the 35-year-old’s slot has 1,000 more listeners than Ryan Tubridy, who dropped 4,000 to 144,000.
It is the first three full months for Nicky’s radio programme – meaning 2FM bosses aren’t worried by a small 4,000 drop from three months ago when he had just started.
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New morning show Breakfast Republic – hosted by Jennifer Maguire, Bernard O’Shea and Keith Walsh – has 111,000 down dramatically from 124,000 three months ago.
But an RTE spokeswoman told Goss.ie that the “buck stops here” and they won’t welcome any more ratings sliding in the next official JNLR figures.
She said: “We always knew that these ratings were going to be down, we said that the station needed to be broken to rebuild.
“But the buck stops here – it takes time for people to settle in at the station and we expected this.”
Meanwhile, Today FM’s Ray D’Arcy has shown he is still a big player, going up to 223,000 after a few drops over the past year.
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And Ian Dempsey is nearly hitting 200,000 – after going up 7,000 to 196,000.
It won’t be the next set of JNLRs later in the year until Pat Kenny has been at Newstalk for a full 12 months where figures are counted.
However while the ex-Late Late Show host is continuing to grow – gaining 20,000 to 134,000 – Sean O’Rourke hasn’t been badly hit.
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Instead, the Today presenter is pulling in 307,000 – down from 312,000 – every morning.
Liveline host Joe Duffy is also still as popular as ever with 387,000 people listening, down from 390,000.
