The marathon coverage of the General Election on RTÉ One Television drew massive audiences on Friday 25th. Starting at 11am, audience figures steadily increased to reach peak viewing during the RTÉ Nine o’clock News which had an audience of 723,000 people.
Viewers stayed with the coverage with almost 600,000 watching events unfold into the early morning. The share figure was 52.7% following the Nine o’clock News until 1am in the morning – meaning more that half of all viewers watching television at the time were tuned into RTÉ’s Election coverage, including the interview with An Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern.
The reach figure for Election 2007 on Friday 25th was over 2 million*.
These figures are an increase on Election 2002, when peak viewership was also at 9.00pm. That year, over 600,000 viewers tuned in to watch the News and just under 50% of people stayed with the coverage on RTÉ One.
RTÉ.ie, the RTÉ website, had an extraordinary weekend with five million hits to the site on Friday alone. (On an average business day the site would receive over a million). On Saturday, the figure was just under three million. In an extraordinary achievement, over the four day period, Thursday to Sunday, the total number of hits to the site was over ten million. The previous record for the website was on Thursday, 17th May, the day of the RTÉ Prime Time Leaders Debate with An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Enda Kenny, Leader of the Fine Gael party, when the site had a total of 1,504,597 hits.
Of the total number of unique users, most were based in Ireland, followed by Britain, the USA and in smaller numbers, the EU, Canada and Australia.
On RTÉ Radio 1, which first broadcast the results of the RTÉ Exit Poll commissioned by Lansdowne Market Research at 7.00am on Friday morning, listeners stayed with the programme around the clock until it finally went off air at 4am on Saturday. The day’s programming of Election 2007 with Sean O’Rourke and Rachael English included the most focused and accurate predictions of how the election would turn out with the whip around of tallies from every constituency at 1pm.
On Saturday morning, programming continued with Morning Ireland from 8am, Election 2007 until 1pm and Saturday View until 2pm. RTÉ Radio not only had the longest-running coverage of any medium, it also had journalists in each of the 43 constituencies.
Questioned in the RTÉ Exit Poll, 68% of those who voted in the Election said they had watched the Leaders Debate on RTÉ Prime Time on May 17th.
(That programme had an average audience of 941,000 and a national audience share of 63.3%. The debate, chaired by Miriam O’Callaghan, achieved a reach of 1.4 million** throughout the course of the programme).
The debate on Wednesday 16th May between leaders of four of the main parties, Pat Rabbitte, Labour Party; Gerry Adams, Sinn Fein; Trevor Sargent of the Green Party and Michael McDowell of the Progressive Democrats had an audience of 581,000 and a 38.4% share. Viewing figures for both debates were also an increase from 2002.
On TG4, which transmitted Vota 2007 between 2.00pm till 2.00am, over 10%** of the population tuned in at some point during the twelve hours and on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta’s award-winning Lá an Chomhairimh programme, presented by Máirín Ní Ghadhra, had reporters in every count centre in the country with up to the minute reports all day Friday and on Saturday from 11am until 2pm.
Video reports from all 43 constituencies are now available on the RTÉ Election website, rte.ie/election.
Date: 28th May 2007
Further information: Carolyn Fisher, Senior Press Officer, RTÉ News and Current Affairs
T: 01 208 3996 / 087 285 6878
Note: * Based on 1min+ reach for all RTÉ News / Election 2007 Programming on 25th of May 2007
** Based on 1min+ reach
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