Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator. That will be arranged. We will move on now because we are over time again. It is on to me at this point.

I acknowledge that both commercial and community radio have been superb, particularly during Covid-19, in terms of broadcasting, excellent news bulletins and factual information, especially the daytime shows that many of the commercial radio stations run programmes which had discussions, experts and debates. It was fantastic. In my own area, such stations as C103, 96FM and Red FM from a commercial point of view and Bere Island radio, which is a community radio station at the very western tip of west Cork, all played a fantastic role during Covid-19 and I must acknowledge that. That is the importance of having the witnesses in here today and having these discussions.

I have some questions. The witnesses say listenership is up in general but revenue appears to be down. I assume the drop in revenue is attributable to the fact that businesses found it incredibly tough during Covid-19 and had less income to target towards advertising. Is there any evidence or any statistics that local businesses and SMEs in particular benefit greatly from advertising on local radio stations?