Figures released by RTE show that 138,000 viewers watched Ahern's half-hour performance at his party's gathering at City West in Dublin last Saturday evening. The rating placed Ahern in bottom place of the four main party leaders who have spoken in the same 8.30pm timeslot on RTE 1 television in 2006.

Labour leader Pat Rabbitte was top of this year's conference viewing charts with his address last April being watched by 162,000 people. Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny was watched by 155,000 viewers last May when he delivered his ard fheis leader's speech.

A month previously 139,000 people turned to RTE 1 to see Mary Harney address the Progressive Democrats' annual conference.

Sinn Fein is the only party to opt for an alternative schedule timeslot, with the leadership address taking place late on Saturday afternoon with hour long live TV coverage from 5pm. Despite the earlier time, however, only 89,000 people turned on to watch party president Gerry Adams.

The main parties are also given two hours' live coverage on RTE television between 11am and 1pm on the Saturday of their annual conference. These broadcasts achieve dismal viewing figures.

Last weekend only 18,000 people watched a variety of aspiring Fianna Fail general election candidates vie for a national profile.

RTE will provide similar live facilities at a series of pre-election party conferences next February and March with the Greens also entitled to TV coverage unlike in 2006. Despite the poor audience ratings, RTE has no plans to revise or change the way party conferences are covered.

Meanwhile, the national broadcaster will start its own internal pre-election monitoring of all political output on radio and television programmes from 1 January. All interviews with politicians will be timed to determine the amount of broadcast time given to each party. In a significant departure from previous election campaigns, the viewing figures for individual programmes will be weighted in terms of audience size to determine a fair allocation of airtime.

The new system will mean that appearances on high audience TV and radio programmes such as Prime Time and news programmes will be given higher weighting in calculating the amount of time given to a party or politician.

"Overall the new system will give a fairer picture of our coverage, " said RTE 's head of public affairs, Peter Feeney.