Observatoire de la Radio: Intensité et attachement

Michael Hedges March 8, 2005

IP France offers an extraordinary look at French national radio channels content and the listeners.

The French radio market offers a veritable cornucopia of radio signals, channels and stations. Six thousand FM signals are roughly divided into thirds for national commercial networks, public broadcaster Radio France and many local stations. It is the national networks, well-established brand names, that continue to dictate French radio content.

IP France, the media sales arm of RTL, has periodically produced L’Observatoire de la Radio since 1993. The 2004/2005 edition, released in February, provides a stunning insight into the powerful and competitive national channel’s program content.

The 90-page booklet starts where every report on radio channels and listeners starts, with the long view of audience reach. Quoting Médiamétrie surveys accumulated since 1992, 42 million people use radio each day, increasing 16% in 13 years.  Listening is roughly split between in-home (54%) and out-of-home (46%).

The program content analysis, however, offers a few gems of insight into the competitive dynamics of 15 of the national radio channels. Radio content was coded into six types – music, information, “fun and games” (divertissement), help, features and sport. Music, of course, dominates, making up 53% of radio content. Adding information and “fun and games” to music, 86% of what French listeners are offered. Sports programs offered have increased to 5% from 1% in 1998. Nowhere in the report is commercial content mentioned.

Comparing program content offered with content used tells a different story. Listening for music has increased to 46% of users from 32% in 1998, and listening for information has dropped to 25% from 30% in the same period. The study suggests, then, that music offered is over-represented, comparing music offered, 53%, to music listening, 46%. Information is under-represented as 16% of radio content compared to 25% of listening choice. Sports programming may also be over-represented with only 2% listener choice compared to 5% of program content.

The five major general interest channels - radios généralistes – offer information (32%), features (19%), “fun and games” (17%) and sport (16%). What is offered on these channels has become more serious. Music made up 16% of the programming in 1998, compared to 6% in 2004. In the same period, “fun and games” programming – which includes talk shows, contests, audience participation and humor – has decreased to 17% from 28% in 1998.

Looking at listener choice, information and “fun and games” are under-represented in the programming of general interest channels, while sports programs are over-represented.

Program content on the five general interest channels has gone through fairly significant changes since 1998. RTL’s information content is relatively unchanged at 37%, but feature content and sports have increased as “fun and games” has decreased. Europe 1 offers a content package similar to RTL, with slightly more sport and features, slightly less “fun and games.” France Inter – a service of public broadcaster Radio France and the only Radio France channel included in the study  - offers more music and features than the other general interest channels and the program offering, by this analysis, has changed little since 1998.

Both RMC Info and Sud Radio have changed considerably and offer program content very different from RTL, Europe 1 and France Inter. RMC Info’s signature content is information, talk and sports. Sud Radio offers very little news (6%) but emphasizes talk shows and features.

Then there are the music channels. And, as the report points out, one theme dominates the French music channels: the 40% music content quota. The vast majority of the content on the music channels is, of course, music. But the input from DJs, often high profile, is significant (19%).

Five of the national music channels offer 100% music – NRJ, RFM, Cherie FM, MFM and Nostalgie. Three offer about two-thirds music with another one-third “fun and games.” Rire & Chansons (literally “laughs and songs”) offers mostly laughs and 29% music.

But it is the in-depth analysis of music programming in Observatoire de la Radio 2004/2005 that makes fascinating, if complicated, reading. It is precisely the detail most programmers and all program consultants never want made public. Competitors are certainly having a field day reading it.

For example, “soft rock” has disappeared from the French radio musical spectrum since 1998. French-language variété – from Charles Aznavour to Jacques Brel to Les chats sauvages to Francis Cabrel – makes up about one-third of music radio content. Two-thirds of music content is variété – French and international – and pop-rock. And music on French radio is getting faster, 108 beats per minute in 2004 from 99 in 2001.

Each of the music channels are analyzed, with attention to music type, playlist depth, and even weekly rotations. With the exception of Rire & Chansons, as the average age of each channels audience increases so does the length of the playlist and its daily turnover. Europe 2 has the shortest playlist (199 titles) and Nostalgie the longest (585).

The final analysis in the report looks at program consumption, based on a on-line survey conducted by Novatris. French listeners, it says, are more “attached” to the top three general interest channels – RTL, Europe 1 and France Inter leaving the music channels to compete fiercely among themselves. Indeed, it seems, with the exception of the high brand value channels, music listeners in France easily switch among several choices.