Everyone’s A Gewinner

Michael Hedges July 14, 2009 Follow on Twitter

The secret to success in the audience ratings business is minimizing change. A little motion is good to show, best for keeping journalists interested. But media buyers are genetically at one with accountants. Best not to lift the green eyeshades.

In Germany, all radio competition is regional. The comprehensive audience survey from Media-Analysis (AG.MA), released Tuesday (July 14), bares the fruit of broadcasters labor from September 2008 through April 2009. The national rankings are fun to look at but the devil, they say, is in the details. (See the top ranked by reach here)

Hit Radio FFH, perennial leader in Hesse, saw a slight dip in daily reach (Monday-Saturday 0600-1800) compared with the previous survey. It’s ranking in the region wasn’t affected. Radio BOB keeps moving up, gaining 50.6% against the previous survey, which showed more than 90% increase over the September 2007-April 2008 survey. Radio BOB takes the award for biggest percentage increase (persons 10+).

Public radio Hessischer Rundfunk channels fared well. Pop music channel HR3 gained 17% daily reach, remaining in second place. All news HR-Info gained about 30%. General interest HR1 increased about 10%. Cultural HR2 and HR4 gained slightly.

Bigness got bigger in Bavaria (Munich). Antenne Bayern returned to the million listener club. They were ‘away’ in the last survey. Antenne Bayern is Germany’s richest broadcaster, taking just under €82 million in 2008. (See top 10 German radio broadcasters by revenue here) And all channels of public broadcaster BR increased. Cultural Bayern 4 Klassik increased 42.6%, the second biggest gainer in the current audience survey. Private station Galaxy took a 34.8% loss and Main FM (Hesse) dropped 39.1%

All Bremen public radio channels increased in daily reach, which is slightly odd as virtually all of their competitors also increased audience. Maybe not so odd; in Berlin – Brandenburg public broadcaster RBB channel Antenne Brandenburg increased audience reach as did private sector stations RTL 104,6, 94.3 rs2, KISS FM and Star FM.

Although public broadcasting channels in total lead privately owned station in audience reach, gains were not universal. Giant WDR took the biggest losses of public sector broadcasting with Eins Live continuing to tumble and WDR 4 off considerably. WDR competes with privately owned NRW, a network of more than 50 local stations. NRW has had the largest gross audience reach of any German broadcaster for several years.

Public broadcast channels increased overall daily reach by 2.7% and private sector broadcasters increased daily reach by 0.4%. The gap between public and private radio in terms of audience reach is virtually unchanged, period to period, the publics leading.

Legacy stations, private and public, continue to face challenges. Long time heavy weights R.SH (Schleswig-Holstein) and PSR (Saxony) saw significant losses; 9.6% and 10%, respectively. But, there are exceptions. Hit Radio Antenne (Lower Saxony) gained 17.6%. Antenne Bayern, noted above, gained 9.1%. 94.2 rs2 (Berlin Brandenburg) gained 13.8%.

Another trend watchers favorite is youth targeted stations, suspicions being young people are leaving radio for Facebook and such. Not necessarily; Energy Hamburg is up 26.9%, Motor FM 33% and Big FM about 7%. Overall listening by 14 to 19 year olds dropped 2.8%.

There were no real game-changers in the MA Radio 2009/II audience survey. Top ranked channels tend to remain on top, though a few slipped noticeably. Some mid-ranked private broadcasters gained, as did several niche market stations near the bottom. Sales houses RMS and AS&S will certainly be pleased that sales stories – and rates – won’t significantly change.

See also in ftm Knowledge...

Europe's Radio - Western Europe – new

Opportunity meets tradition in Western Europe's radio broadcasting. Change has come fast and yet oh, so slowly. This ftm Knowledge file contains material and resources on public and private radio broadcasting in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands and Switzerland. 107 pages. PDF (June 2010)

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Media in Germany

Europe's biggest media market is home to four of the world's largest media companys and one of this centurys biggest media deals. It was the first to switch completely from analogue to digital TV while digital radio languishes. Its public broadcasters face new rules from Brussels and fight to keep their strong market positions. Germany's media has more corners than a Rubic's Cube. Includes 47 articles. 72 pages PDF (December 2008)

ftm Members order here

Available at no charge to ftm Members, others from €49