Changes, More Channels Push Bigger Audience

Michael Hedges April 25, 2013 Follow on Twitter

Tough times turn broadcasters to joint ventures and acquisitions to hold on to market share. While some media houses throw in the towel, others are seeing sunshine. But content is still king as new channels attract audiences.

Spain’s leading radio channel, Cadena SER, solidified its top position, increasing daily reach share to 35.1% from 32.0% one year on in the General Media Study (EGM) released by AIMC (April 22). The general interest channel has led the national market for many years with a strong emphasis on news and sports, populated by well-known personalities. Cadena SER is majority owned by major media house Grupo Prisa.

Legacy hit music channel Los 40 Principales, also owned by Grupo Prisa, held 2nd position but dropped to 19.2% daily reach, lowest in years, from 21.1% year to year. The channel changed morning show host late last year and, according to local reports, morning ratings suffered. Sister channel Maxima FM, a dance music format, dropped to 3.4% daily reach from 3.7%.

Grupo Prisa also owns music channels Cadena Dial, M80 and Radio Ole. Cadena Dial, largely Spanish pop music, remains unchanged at 13.5% daily reach at 4th place nationally, not budging for three years. Radio Ole dropped to 3.0% daily reach from 3.4% one year on.

Onda Cero held 3rd position, 18.3% daily reach down from 18.8%. The general interest channel is owned by Planeta and RTL Group in a newly formed joint venture called Atresmedia, which operates television channels Antena 3 and LaSexta. Onda Cero’s main ratings strength seems to come from the weekday morning show hosted by Carlos Herrera.

Also owned by the Atresmedia joint venture, pop rock channel Europa FM was the biggest gainer by daily reach of the national music channels, popping to 9.8% from 8.3% one year on, the channel’s best showing ever. One media observer in Spain suggested Europa FM benefited from the “collapse” of Los 40 Principales.

Results for Cadena COPE were unchanged, year on year, ranking 5th with 11.7% daily reach. Cadena COPE, principally owned by the Episcopal Conference of Spain, absorbed ABC Punto Radio and redistributed its FM frequencies. After approval from National Competition Commission (Comisión Nacional de la Competencia – CNC) in March main Cadena COPE programs began appearing on Punto Radio frequencies. Publisher Vocento, owner of newspapers ABC and El Correo, decided to liquidate Punto Radio last December and exit radio broadcasting.

Rock FM, owned by COPE, gained significantly, moving to 2.7% daily reach from 1.1% one year on. The rock music channel that has also offered sports programming was rebranded from Rock & Gol in November 2011. It will likely see more gains benefiting from some of the Punto Radio frequencies. Several years ago Grupo Zeta ended a distribution arrangement with Rock&Gol and created Hit FM, which in the current survey scored 1.0% daily reach, up from 0.7% one year on.

Public broadcasting RNE main channel Radio Nacional fell to 6th place in the national survey, 10.2% daily reach from 11.8%, one year on, and 5th place. Local media watchers blame the retreat on schedule changes and weak daytime programming. “The only time RNE recorded a rise was the evening sports program,” noted publico.es (April 22). The diverse RNE Radio 3 posted a slight rise, 2.4% daily reach from 2.2%. All news channel Radio 5 Todos Noticias was unchanged at 1.6% daily reach.

Adult contemporary channel M80 bumped up to 3.4% daily reach from 2.9% year on year, another music channel on the rise. Kiss FM, however, continues to struggle, falling to 5.1% daily reach from 5.8% one year on, its worst showing in years.

All radio listening in Spain continued to rise, now 61.7% national penetration up from 59.3% one year on and 55.2% in the like period 2010. Both men and women are tuning-in more, 66.0% of men and 57.7% of women listening daily. Time spent listening has also pitched upward, 112 daily minutes in the recent survey, up from 106 minutes in the same period 2010. Related, perhaps, to the increased listening is a decided jump in the number of channels reaching at least 1.0% daily reach in the national survey, six more than in just two years ago.

The EGM is a rolling monthly average of radio listening by persons 14 years and older released three times a year. The recent report covers the 12-month period ending with March 2013.

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