Traditional Is The Latest Trend

Michael Hedges March 8, 2012 Follow on Twitter

Legacy media brands are on the rise. Oh, yes, there are a zillion channels available on every sort of platform. All those new ones add to the mix, certainly, but the folks keep coming back to the tried and true companions.

Compared with the last audience survey, top line figures from Germany’s Radio MA 2012 I changed very little. Total audience reach in the last half 2011when the survey was conducted was up only a little. Time spent listening Monday-Friday 06h00 to 18h00 hasn’t moved. Within that were are a few broad trends, apparent now that survey institute AG.MA hasn’t changed methodology in two years.

Private broadcasters got a boost, notably several big ones. Overall gross national reach for private radio broadcasters increased 2.1% to 33.64 million listeners from the previous survey. Radio NRW, the Nordrhein-Westfalan network of 45 local stations, continues as Germany’s biggest audience grabber with 1.737 million listeners, up 4.6% from the previous survey.  “Traditional radio is the latest trend,” said general manager Udo Becker in a statement. Radio NRW has topped the German radio audience surveys for twelve consecutive years.

The biggest story in the new radio audience figures was the huge spike for full service adult contemporary channel Antenne Bayern, Bavaria’s leading legacy private broadcaster. A year ago the station began seeing recovery from a two-year slump. Now it’s gross reach jumped 22.9% over the previous survey to 1.105 million listeners for third place overall. Radio NRW and Antenne Bayern are the only private broadcasters in the current top ten.

Public channels, taken together, still have more listeners that their private competitors, 38.28 million but that was off 1.6% from the previous survey. Oldies music public channel Bayern 1 held second place nationally with 1.143 million gross reach, up a scant half percent over the previous survey. Other public radio channels in the top ten fared less well. SWR3 placed fourth with 1.086 million listeners, down 3.5%. Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) youth channel EinsLive took the biggest fall of public broadcasters in the top ten, down 6.8% to 1.011 million listeners and held fifth place nationally. WDR2 was nominally flat in 6th place with 932,000 listeners. After that, Bayern 3, WDR 4 and NDR2, in order, were down between four and five percent. SWR 4 Baden Württemberg regional channel was up 3.8% to 568,000 listeners for tenth place.

In the second ten private channel Hit Radio FFH placed 11th with 529,000 listeners, up 7.1%.

Other private radio channels were nearly flat – radio ffn – or down – Radio SAW, Hit Radio Antenne and its sister channel Hit Radio Antenne 1. Only one public radio channel in the second ten was up – Hessischer Rundfunk pop music channel hr3.

Regionally, there were many new stories. Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB) public general interest channel Antenne Brandenburg overtook RTL 104.6 for the top spot. The RBB children’s channel Radio Teddy zoomed 45% to 32,000 listeners.  Private station BB Radio was up, RTL 104.6 was essentially flat and 94.3 rs2 was down. Overall listening in Berlin-Brandenburg was up about 5%, far higher than the national rate.

The biggest winner by percentage was tiny local Ulm station Donau 3 FM, gaining 87.5%. “In our nine year history, this is the biggest ever,” said general manager Carlheinz Gern. A year ago the station was blue distinguished as Germany’s biggest loser.

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