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Radio king Pat Kenny has been dethroned by ex-colleague Sean O'Rourke in the radio ratings war.

The new Today Show presenter has an incredible 327,000 people tuning in to the programme every morning - even though veteran Kenny defected to Newstalk.

Official JNLR radio figures show O'Rourke has cemented his place by gaining 6,000 extra listeners since a year ago when the ex-Late Late Show host held the reigns.

However, Pat has 96,000 people tuning into his Newstalk show – and has gained 43,000 from when Tom Dunne held the slot a year ago.

And he insisted people shouldn't write him off just yet – and it will take a year to fully bring across the audience he wants.

He told the Irish Mirror: “The ratings are doing very nicely, the graph is heading up in the right direction so I am very pleased.

“Anything that is a comparison, you've got to know that Sean and I have only been in our positions from September. So year-on-year comparisons are not relevant.

“The only time we'll be looking at the picture in the round is in November, which will give us results when both of us have been in our positions for 12 months.

“The task is to persuade people who have spent a lifetime tuned with the radio at one end of the dial to get them to move to the other, and that's something that can't be accomplished overnight.”

After the figures were released, a triumphant Sean said he was determined to continue proving why he is number one – by gaining even more listeners.

He exclusively told the Irish Mirror: “We think as well that we can improve even more, because I'm still adjusting to the big change, and I've now started to enjoy doing the job.

“And I think that's starting to come through on air. It's a fantastic privilege to me in the seat that I'm in and the one thing I will never do is take the listeners for granted.

“I think I can improve as a presenter and give even more reasons to stay with the show or come across to it.”

Insiders claim the figures prove Montrose were right to let the 66-year-old walk away and not give into his salary demands to keep him with RTE.

And the Radio One man, 58, insisted it proves people were wrong to think that 100,000 people could have actually decided to move the dial.

Triumphant Sean added: “I don't think that was ever to be taken seriously. I just don't think that people were going to be that easily persuaded to go elsewhere.”

Figures also show that Pat is still only the fourth most listened to programme on Newstalk – behind Sean Moncrieff, Breakfast and George Hook who has 130,000.

Other rival Ray D'Arcy is proving he has a loyal listenership despite the new competition – with 230,000 people continuing to tune in to the Today FM programme.

While Tubridy has also been pretty much unaffected, with 152,000 listening to his 2fm show.

But there was a slight shock for 2fm after discovering that Hector actually increased his listeners after being axed.

His programme is up from 124,000 a year ago to 136,000 – but RTE expect to improve that more when Jennifer Maguire, Bernard O'Shea and Keith Walsh take over next month.