It’s The Best Game Plan That Plays Well

Michael Hedges July 17, 2014 Follow on Twitter

How many sports metaphors can be fit into a programming plan? Everybody sees, finds, shifts or moves “the goal posts.” And everybody looks for, dodges or admires “the slam dunk.” After “kick off” keep your “eye on the ball.” There are more, just ask.

German public broadcasters cheered – generally – this week’s MA 2014 Radio II audience estimates release, coming so soon after the home team returned to Berlin’s non-stop party.  All radio listening was up slightly year on year, looking at Monday-Friday, 06h00-18h00, persons 10 years and older and down slightly among persons 14 to 49 years. Private sector broadcasters had some good news.

The top three stations in the national rankings did not change, as usual. Radio NRW, the network of more than 40 local stations in North Rhine-Westphalia, is still on top with 1.633 million daily reach listeners, up 1.7% year on year. Number two, again, is Bavaria’s Antenne Bayern, up 4.9% to 1.351 million folks. Public radio Südwestrundfunk pop music channel SWR 3 placed 3rd, down 2.5% to 1.122 million.

Fourth place in the national ratings went to Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) full-service adult contemporary channel WDR 2, which moved up one rank year on year with a daily reach boost of 14.2% to 1.118 million. Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR) public channel Bayern 1 also rose one rank to 5th place with 1.063 million daily reach listeners, up 8.9%. WDR’s youth channel 1Live (EinsLive) dropped to 6th from 4th one year on, falling 5.0% in daily reach to 1.041 million, lowest since MA 2011Radio I. Five channels - four public and one private plus the semi-private NRW network – captured more than one million daily reach listeners. Last year this period there were only three plus NRW.

Four more public radio channels round out the national ranking top ten. NDR 2 maintained 7th place while dropping 4.5% in daily reach. WDR 4, targeting older listeners, gained less than one percent daily reach and rose to 8th place. BR Bayern 3, targeting young people, lost 9.0% daily reach one year on and fell to 9th place. Keeping 10th place was the oldies music SWR 4 Baden-Württemberg channel, at a loss of 3.8% daily reach.

The winners, as they are entitled, pulled out the football metaphors. “Like our national football team taking the long awaited titled, it is the same with us,” said NRW managing director Udo Becker in a statement. “It is now for us to take this World Cup mood and offer plenty of high-quality highlights to our listeners.” The NRW local station network has for 29 years attracted more listeners than any single radio channel. Of course, it’s something of a monopoly.

“Listeners appreciate WDR for its diversity,” said radio director Valerie Weber, taking a straightforward line in her first post-MA ratings statement since joining the public broadcaster earlier this year from private channel market leader Antenne Bayern. “Keeping the historically high market share for WDR despite increasing competition on FM and digitally on the internet will be one of the tasks for WDR radio for the next decade.”

There were, of course, big winners by percentage gain year on year. Munich local hit music station Radio Gong boosted daily reach 63.9%. With a certain degree of fanfare, Hessische Rundfunk’s (hr) public youth channel YouFM rose 62.5% in daily reach. Program director Jan Vorderwülbecke credited the “social radio” positioning. Public all-news channel hr-info gained 58.8% daily reach year on year. Quasi-national multi-platform Schlager music channel Radio Paloma gained 53% daily reach. Is that like “own goal?”

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