Global Media Intelligence 2019: Ireland

Key Features

Ireland’s media landscape is typical of an advanced, highly literate Western economy, where PCs were available before mobile phones, and traditional media are still popular.

• In terms of device ownership, the balance has already shifted to mobile. Nearly 96% of internet users in Ireland ages 16 to 64 polled by GlobalWebIndex in H1 2019 owned a smartphone; 81.4% owned a PC.
• Ownership of tablets—another device category arguably no longer at the cutting edge of innovation—was also relatively high, at 53.4%. The likelihood of owning a tablet correlated directly with income, being higher in better-off households, and was also several percentage points higher among adults 35 and older. Respondents in suburban and rural areas were also more likely to own a tablet than those living in cities; this may reflect the fact that non-urban dwellers typically skew older.
• Those figures help to explain why Ireland’s internet users have typically spent more time with larger screens. In H1 2018, respondents spent, on average, almost 1 hour longer on PCs and tablets each day than on mobile devices. That gap is closing, albeit slowly: In H1 2019, the average daily time internet users spent with PCs and tablets was 3 hours, 20 minutes (3:20), vs. mobile’s average of 2:41.
• Live radio remains an integral part of consumers’ media consumption. Nearly eight in 10 internet users in Ireland had listened to broadcast radio in H1 2019, with an average time spent of 1:12 per day. Penetration was highest—approaching 90%—among internet users in the top 25% of households, ranked by income.
• Older respondents were more likely to engage with print media. At least 74.0% of 45- to 64-year-olds had read a newspaper in the past month, which was twice as high as penetration in the youngest cohort (ages 16 to 24). Magazine readership was lower, at 50.5%. But again, the share of 16- to 24-year-olds who had read one (34.6%) was far below the 64.1% among 55- to 64-year-olds.