By Their Choices They Will Reinvent What You Do

Michael Hedges March 7, 2016 Follow on Twitter

The preferences, interests and attitudes of young people, shifting as they will, cause considerable anxiety within the media world. This is not particularly new. The young have irritated their elders forever. Accused, typically, of incessant devotion to fun young people are also insatiably curious. There’s a news story here.

German media watchers, certainly the advertising people, welcomed the comparative advantage of MA Radio 2016 I audience estimates. Without challenging scientific standards the new report can be viewed along side the previous MA Radio 2015 II, for which the survey sample had been adjusted to represent up-to-date population estimates and, significantly, added interviews to mobile phone users. Comparisons with older reports are strictly verboten.

The Radio NRW network 45 local - and diverse - private stations in North Rhine-Westphalia still tops the national rankings (persons 10 years and older Monday-Friday 6h00-18h00) but off 2.0% against the previous period. The public broadcaster in North Rhine-Westphalia, Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), had a mixed result. WDR 2 gained slightly and continues to rank 4th country-wide. Pop music 1Live, 6th place, was off 4.0%. Oldies channel WDR 4 held 9th place nationally, off 1.0%.

Bavaria’s legacy regional adult-contemporary station Antenne Bayern held 2nd place nationally, up 3.2% in daily reach. Public broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR) also had a mixed result. General interest channel Bayern 1 was up slightly, placing 5th nationally, while pop music channel Bayern 3 dropped 2.5% in total daily reach for 7th place nationally. All-news B5 aktuell posted a notable 18.3% daily reach increase and classical music BR Klassik was up 6.6%.

Several private local stations in Bavaria, mostly based in Munich, wowed observers with big daily reach changes. Munich hit music station Radio Gong was up 38.3% period to period in daily reach and dance-pop egoFM was up 35.7%. The Munich Energy (NRJ) franchise was off 21.6% in daily reach. Elsewhere he Energy (NRJ) brand shined brightly. The Hamburg, Berlin, Stuttgart and Bremen local stations all gained against the previous survey. Energy Bremen is primarily owned by RTL Group, the others owned by NRJ Group. NRJ Germany CEO Olaf Hopp is “optimistic about the future,” noting recent DAB+ expansion.

Gaining 4.1% in daily reach period to period and ranked 3rd nationally was SWR 3, pop/contemporary music channel of regional public broadcaster Südwestrundfunk (SWR), which serves neighboring federal states Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate. Pop oldies SWR 1 and older oldies and schlager music SWR 4 channels for Baden-Württemberg were off 1.6% and 3,9% in daily reach, respectively. On the other hand, the SWR 1 RP (version for Rhineland-Palatinate) was up 15.3% in daily reach and SWR 4 RP gained less than a point. Local Baden-Württemberg private stations Radio Regenbogen, 24th nationally, and Antenne 1, further down the list, were both significantly lower while Radio 7 was up in daily reach.

North Rhine-Westphalia, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg are, in order, the most populous Federal German States, giving their broadcasters significant advantage in national rankings, public channels in particular. Aggregate daily reach was lower for private radio in North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Württemberg but up in Bavaria. For public broadcasters aggregate daily reach was up in Bavaria and, slightly, in Baden-Württemberg though slightly lower in North Rhine-Westphalia. Overall aggregate daily reach nationally for the 64 public radio channels was up 0.7% to 37.74 million. Private radio daily reach was off 0.5% from the previous period to 31.2 million, about 340 stations. (See German audience trend chart here, forbidden parts included)

"Times of crisis need reliability,” said ARD radio chairman and MDR radio director Johann Michael Möller in the official statement. “The results indicate that people find credibility in the quality of public service broadcasting programs. This is proven by significant gains in information and cultural programs.”

The shifting demographics of radio listeners as measured by AG.MA plays a large role in broadcaster’s fortunes, ad rates being determined by gross reach. Total daily listening (Monday-Friday 06h00-18h00) among 20 to 29 year olds dropped 3.0% against the previous survey, 30 to 39 year olds falling 2.2%. While many pressures determine a broadcaster’s ratings performance, a shrinking universe among younger radio listeners is an unquestioned trend.

Germany’s population is shrinking and aging, a trend expected to continue well into mid-century, immigration notwithstanding. Younger Germans are flocking to Berlin and Hamburg (city-states) as well as Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, both in southern Germany. Eastern and central States, notably Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringen, are in population decline. Average weekday listening among persons 70 years and older rose 4.2%.

Among 10 to 29 year old listeners in the national survey the top 10 channels and stations were divided equally between public and private broadcasters. WDR’s 1Live ranked 1st in the age group, followed by private station Antenne Bayern, the Radio NRW network, SWR3, Bayern 3, WDR 2, Hit Radio FFH, radio ffn, NDR 2 and bigFM Hot Music. The four of the five public channels were marginally up or down. Adult contemporary channel NDR 2 of Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR), serving Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Lower Saxony, took a 12% hit. Private station Hit Radio FFH, adult contemporary station serving Hesse (Frankfurt), gained 12.8% in the age group and 8.3% overall. Hit music station bigFM Hot Music, serving Rhineland-Palatinate, dropped 19.3% among 10 to 29 year olds and 19.4% overall. The rest were somewhere in between.

Perhaps to some contrafactual, listeners under 30 years gave a boost to news and information channels, all being public broadcasters. Aggregating the nine rated news and news/talk channels, daily reach among listeners 20 to 29 years increased period to period 9.7% and 13.7% among 10 to 19 year olds. Seven of the news and news/talk channels showed overall increases. B5 aktuell, mentioned above, was up 13.1% among all listeners and 14.3% among listeners 10 to 29 years.

“The (ratings) snapshot shows that young audiences apparently want more information in the currently serious times,” noted media researcher and journalist Jens Schröder in meedia.de (March 4), “and less entertainment.” Within the 40 to 49 year old sub-group listening to news and news/talk channels dropped 2.1%. Advertising is forbidden on public news and news/talk channels.

The semi-annual MA Radio audience estimates are organized by joint industry group Arbeitsgemeinschaft Media-Analyse (agma). The next report, which will be used to set 2017 ad rates, will be released in July.

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