Downtown Radio Surges Up Radio Ratings

Downtown Radio records biggest increase of any radio station in Northern Ireland – adding 84,000 new listeners!

Author: David McCammondPublished 13th May 2020
Last updated 15th May 2020

Downtown Radio has seen a huge jump in listenership in new audience figures just released today that show 278,000 weekly listeners are now tuning in every week.

The figure represents a 43% increase over the past year – the biggest increase of any radio station in the country.

Downtown turned 100% Christmas last December

Content Director Bauer Media NI, Stuart Robinson said;

“We have been spending lots of time recently on re-focusing Downtown Radio’s content with our core demographic of 35+ firmly in mind. Our new Breakfast combination of Gary Myles and Glen Pavis is proving extremely popular with listeners.

“We’ve also increased listener choice by adding in a new evening programme with Kirstie McMurray while at the same time the legendry Big T’s evening show is broadcast via our digital outlet Downtown Country and on 1026AM frequency. This change has enabled us to bring consistency to Downtown Radio’s proposition while enhance Downtown Country’s programme line up.

“We've been bold in some of our programming decisions in recent months and these have paid off – in December we transformed the entire station to ‘Christmas Music’ - this brought lots of new listeners to us and we are delighted they’ve stayed with the station since then”.

“Meanwhile our big money giveaway competition ‘Cash Call’ is the talk of the town having paid out more than £1million to lucky winners over the last year”

Stuart added “whilst not reflected in the most recent audience data, we are excited to have just launched a new frequency for Downtown Radio on 103.4FM which will deliver improved coverage to listeners in large parts of Greater Belfast, including Newtownabbey, Carrickfergus and Holywood. We also have other exciting plans to increase and develop our audio portfolio even further in the months ahead”.

The Downtown Network which includes digital station Downtown Country has seen audience increase to 336,000 weekly listeners.

Downtown’s big audience jump comes as sister-station Cool FM dethrones BBC Radio Ulster as Northern Ireland’s Number 1 radio station for the first time ever.

Collectively Bauer Media NI’s three radio station now reach a record breaking 731,000 listeners - almost half of Northern Ireland’s entire population.