Local Media Groans and Adapts

Michael Hedges January 5, 2010 Follow on Twitter

Local media gets short changed in almost every way. Advertisers and other funders ignore them. Politicians and measurement services can’t find them. Odd, though, audiences get excited about them.

Media and media people love bigness. Business, in general, has the constant itch to expand. Italian media is no different, eschewing local channels for national reach. Rome, Italy’s capital, provides a vivid example.

Radio Dimensione Suono (RDS) is the most listened to radio channel in Rome. It’s also among the top five radio channels in Italy. A shade more than one-fifth of Romans (20.7%) tune in each day, according to the most recent Audiradio (September October 2009) radio survey. AudiRadio publishes regional listening data for the 12 Italian regions; the Lazio region encompassing Rome.

RDS is a successful legacy national network, launched in 1978 as a local Rome station. By the early -1990’s the station could be heard all over Italy. It positions itself as “50% Italian Music, 50% international music, 100% great success.” The company built new headquarters in Rome in 2009.

RDS also operates three local stations in Rome: Dimensione Suono Due – a soft rock station, Dimensione Suono Roma – mostly music with a local hook, and Ram Power – lots of music and no DJs.

Radio Subasio is also a child of the mid-1970’s. While considered a regional channel, covering about mostly central Italy on FM frequencies the focus remains on Rome. In 2007 Radio Subasio was voted best local radio at the first RadioGrolle awards. The Settimi family has owned the station for over 30 years.

Purely local radio has been “a dominant feature” in Italy’s media landscape, said a report commissioned by Corecom and conducted by the University of Milan, released in late November 2009. Local radio has “represented a plurality of voices and musical fabric of ties to the area built with the tenacity of the volunteers, innovators and visionaries, but have struggled to grow.” In the Milan (Lombardia) region the number of unique broadcast radio channels halved between 1995 and 2008, according to the report, from 230 channels to 116.

Two all sports radio channels – Centro Suono Sport and Rete Sport – bring more football and occasionally other sports to Rome’s listeners. Rete Sport, owned by Gruppo Roma Radio, has been on the air since 2007. Centro Suono Sport, also locally owned, launched in 2005.

Sports figures prominently on Radio Radio, the local news/talk station. Excitable as Romans are, the station may have offended a few. In 2006 the studios were firebombed, football fans suspected, and in 2008 unhappy tenants forced the station out of a building it occupied.

Radio Globo is a local dance music station in the midst of all the national (mostly) dance music channels. Radio Rock is, obviously, a rock music station.

Rome being the seat of Italian government, news is a major element for radio programming. Public broadcaster RAI has a greater combined audience share for its four primary radio channels (Radio Uno, Radio Due, Radio Tre and Isoradio) – 35.1% in the Lazio region than in Italy as a whole – 34.1%. Radio Due, more music oriented, and Radio Tre, the arts and classical music channel, rate significantly higher in Lazio than in Italy as a whole. All of the national commercial networks have studios and journalists in Rome. 

Rome is also home to Radio Radicale, which bills itself as the only Italian radio broadcaster wholly devoted to politics. Born in 1976 by students aligned with the Italian Partito Radicale, the station is now a minor national channel covering about 70% of the country with FM frequencies. It is currently owned by Lista Pannella, a Libertarian off-shoot of Partito Radicale.

Financing for Radio Radicale has come, in part, from a government fund established for “opinion reporting,” largely benefiting newspapers. That fund has come up short, the Ministry of Economic Development not completely renewing and the station faces possible closure.

In addition to the stations above the minimal threshold for Audiradio reporting are the community stations. Virtually all Rome radio channels are available on FM, satellite, digital radio and the Web. Like other local stations, Radio Radicale has a large staff, disproportionate for its revenue stream.

Local media, figuratively and literally, touch their communities more than national channels. As revenue streams become deleveraged from national and international models the fragmentation could benefit local media. With emphasis in and around media focusing more on “communities” policies might also be adapting.

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