Bauer Media’s network of radio stations have seen audience figures rise due to the huge success of its controversial Cash Machine giveaway first launched in September 2021. The first Joint National Listenership Report (JNLR) published after Bauer bought the portfolio from Denis O’Brien’s Communicorp showed the network had a weekly reach of 1.7 million listeners in December 2021. By November 2023, the figure had risen to 1.98m.
Cash Machine includes cash giveaways where listeners to Newstalk, Today FM and 98FM get to win tens of thousands of euro. Contestants enter by texting their answers at a cost of €2.50. Presenters remind listeners of the prize fund at the top of every hour. The German-owned radio group has declined to reveal how much revenue the giveaway has generated but it is estimated that around €5 million was won by listeners last year.
One 98FM listener won €200,000, the biggest sum of money ever given away on Irish radio.
Joe Duffy, presenter of the Liveline phone-in show on RTÉ Radio One, posted comments on X, which were later deleted, where he said that Cash Machine “fulfills all the criteria of ‘gambling'”. Duffy asked Bauer to confirm how much its listeners paid to take part in the cash giveaway. A spokesperson for Bauer denied allegations that the competition was a form of gambling and claimed that the game complies fully with Irish law.
Pictured above is Today FM’s new weekday presenter Louise Cantillon
