Survey Reveals Story Ready To Be Told

Michael Hedges January 17, 2022 Follow on Twitter

It seems, quite often, that professional media watchers wait to pounce until they have numbers in their hot hands. General observations oft repeated only find salience when a dataset or survey can be attached. Of course, there’s one big reason: editors. This special tribe watching over the watchers has no patience with whiners, particularly when conventional wisdom is challenged. But with numbers in hand comes the onslaught.

Audience estimates for French national radio channels covering the November-December 2021 period were released this past week by research institute Médiamétrie. Interviews were conducted between November 1 and December 26 with persons 13 years and older, effectively measuring the run-up to the end of year holidays. During the period, noted Médiamétrie, were more coronavirus effects. The health passport program was expanded as infection rates rose. More candidates declared themselves in the running for the April presidential election.

There were two themes of note among French media watchers. France Inter, the main general interest channel of public broadcaster Radio France, sits on top, again and bigger than ever, almost. Par contre, Europe 1 is “sinking into ever deeper waters.” Every other subject - music channels, morning shows, comedians - was secondary or tertiary.

Year-on-year trends were not thrilling, after all the November December 2020 were even more complicated by coronavirus. Aggregate audience share for national commercial channels rose to 64.8% from 63.5%. This can be attributed to a share recovery for RTL, the general interest channel owned by M6 Group (RTL Group) that may, sometime soon, become part of the merged M6/TF1 broadcaster. RTL is, again, in second place with 13.3% audience share, up from 12.6%.

The channels of public broadcaster Radio France on aggregate dropped to 29.7% audience share from 31.9% on year on, dragged by France Inter falling to 13.6% from 14.7%. To say the November December 2020 period is an outlier is something of an understatement. Regional public network France Bleu was unchanged at 5.8% audience share for, again, third place.

Naturally, Radio France executives were available for glowing observations. "Knowing that no station had ever reached this level is the best answer we can give to critics of the public service,” said France Inter director Laurence Bloch, quoted by Le Monde (January 13). "We take our listeners for free and enlightened citizens: there is no clash, no tables of editorialists who do not know the field, but news.”

"It's a nice score for the public (broadcaster), to attract 15.5 million listeners every day,” added Radio France director Dana Hastier. All-news public channel France Info dropped to 7th place with 4.3% audience share, down from 4.7%. "There is a form of public fatigue with Covid-19, and this, while the presidential campaign has not begun,” explained France Info director Jean-Philippe Baile. Both France Culture and France Musiques were also lower while alternative channel FIP (formerly France Inter Paris) was up slightly.

Iconic hit music channel NRJ placed 4th in the national survey, tied with news/talk channel RMC with 5.6% audience share. NRJ was unchanged, year on year and RMC was up from 5.3% audience share. The biggest upward change for music channels was NRJ sister channel Nostalgie with 4.5% audience share from 3.9%. Rap/hiphop channel Skyrock placed 8th with 3.5% audience share up from 3.1%.

French media watchers ripped Europe 1, which fell to 3.4% audience share and 9th place from 3.9% one year on. The program line-up introduced last August “has not improved the audiences of the famous radio (station),” slapped business oriented Challenges (January 14), noting the changes brought Europe 1 “closer” to right-wing TV talk channel CNews. Though Europe 1 remains part of Lagardère Group, its output, “in the hands of (Vincent) Bolloré,” is “obviously not enough for the station’s audiences to follow.” Others including Le Parisian (January 13), noted new voices recruited for Europe 1 after an onslaught of departures last autumn are radio and TV stars from the mid-1970s.

The morning shows of the national musical radio channels were spotlighted by Pure Medias (January 13). NRJ is way out in front, and climbing. Nostalgie and Fun Radio gained in the morning. Skyrock really gained. NRJ and Skyrock also won listeners in other dayparts. RTL2’s morning show dropped. The morning shows of Virgin Radio and RFM really dropped.

See also...

• Hot Topics - Media in France
• Hot Topics - Media and the Virus