It’s the music. It’s the measurement. It’s awful!

Michael Hedges January 20, 2010 Follow on Twitter

Judging from early returns – ratings, that is – this year starts almost where it left off. Audiences are still falling. It’s the fault of everything. The best advice may be to keep a good sense of humor.

The French national radio audience estimates were released by Médiamétrie (January 19) to great expectation. Would the commercial music channels continue their downward slide? Will RTL be forever on top? Although the devil is in the details, the answers add up to more questions.

Overall penetration of listening – total audience – in November/December 2009 was 81.5%. Comparing same periods, this is quite a crash: down from 83% in 2008 and 84.1% in 2007. November/December total audience listening in France has tended, over the last five years, to be higher than other periods. April/June and September/October tend to be about 1.5% lower than the November/December total audience percentage. (See French national radio audience trend here)

Average time spent listening in November/December was 175 minutes. This, too, has fallen over the last three years, comparing like periods. However, before 2006 average time spent listening was generally lower; 174 minutes in 2005 and 2006, 177 minutes in 2004, 172 minutes in 2003.

Much - and little - has changed in the French radio landscape over the last five years. Without question, news and talk channels have seen market share growth while music channels – generally – have not. One conclusion, oft made, says a tipping point was reached about two years ago when a portion of young people switched off listening to music on traditional radio in favor of new media. Blame the internet. Blame the mobile phone.

Point to the precipitous market share decline of the traditional music channel for young people – NRJ – to affirm that conclusion. And, too, other national music channels have stalled.  Perhaps not only young music listeners have turned away from traditional radio channels. All new media supporters would agree.

The market share decline for NRJ posted in the November/December results was dramatic. Comparing like periods, NRJ dropped to 5.3% from 5.8% in 2008, 6.6% in 2007, 6.8% in 2006, 7.0% in 2005 and 7.6% in 2004. Médiamétrie reports listening by people 13 years and older. Details in target markets might show a quite different picture.

The top four radio channels in the national survey haven’t changed position. RTL remains number one, though market share has fallen to 12.4% from 13.0% in 2008 and 13.1% in 2007, comparing like periods. Public radio France Inter remains number two, rose to 9.6% from 9.1% one year on. Europe 1, still number three, posted 8.6% market share, up from 8.4%. Public radio regional network France Bleu took fourth place, 6.3% from 5.8% year on year.

Tied with NRJ for fifth position is RMC, not changing at 5.3%. All of these five channels have a programming focus on news and information, speech-based. Conventional wisdom suggests the news and talk programs appeal to older listeners, however that might be defined.

After that come the national music channels. NRJ fell and so did Nostalgie (5.0%, 7th place) and RMF (2.8%, 13th place), both oldies-based music stations. Skyrock, number 8, is rock steady with 4.5% markets share, unchanged year on year.

Fun Radio posted its best rating in more than two years; up to 4.1% (9th place) from 3.4%. After flailing about mid-decade past the dance music channel, owned by RTL, has sharpened focus and spent righteously on marketing and advertising.

The all-news France Info placed 10th, down to 3.7% from 3.9% one year on. Aggregate share for French public radio channels – France Inter, France Bleu, France Info, France Culture and France Musiques – rose to 22.7% from 21.9% one year on. Again, conventional wisdom posits older listeners choosing the public radio channels.

The November/December audience survey results broadly show a smaller overall radio audience in France spending less time with radio channels. But it is smaller and less by degrees. Total listening in France may have been higher in 2006 and 2007 because of elections and other celebrity news. New media usage in France is finally picking up with the rest of Europe, driven by young people at first with older age groups trying out the internets and mobile phones. For music channels like NRJ, music industry output has offered no help.

Within it all, there is a measurement issue. The Médiamétrie audience survey, like most in Europe, is conducted with recall-based interviews. It is a system benefiting radio channels with the highest brand awareness. Fun Radio – and others – promoting extensively and creatively raise audience awareness and, in turn, ratings rise. And, then, some fall. Ad rates change.

Every audience researcher knows from experience that when a station’s ratings are up it was the effect of brilliant programming and when down it’s the fault of the measurement. NRJ Group CEO Jean-Paul Baudecroux, in an interview with France Soir (January 20), passed fault downward. Fun Radio, he said, “benefitedfrom the mistakes of our programming.”

“The previous program manager made mistakes in music strategy,” said the brand-master. “He was old programming. This was not a great survey for NRJ.”

Baudecroux went on to suggest Médiamétrie lower the survey age range to 10 years. “You know, if Médiamétrie took into account the audience ten years and more, we would still lead Europe 1. Médiamétrie must understand that it currently has a monopoly on audience research and it will have to modernize to keep it.”

Asked about the suggestion to lower again the age of survey respondents, Europe 1 General Director Alexandre Bompard, in the same France Soir article, seemed to grin: “I acknowledge the humor of Jean-Paul Baudecroux.”