By The Time You Tell Them What’s New They’ve Already Decided It’s Not

Michael Hedges November 20, 2015 Follow on Twitter

Broadcasters once benefitted from setting appointments, telling people when to tuned in. Self-promotion was essential, an art-form even. Always-on digital natives, it’s believed, are having none of this. With everything at their fingertips, quite literally, finding it now competes with having it all.

When measurement institute Médiamétrie released French national radio audience estimates this week there was, as usual, good news, not so good news and bad news. It all depends on perspective. The September-October period is of special importance for broadcasters selling ads, the holiday retail season looming large.

Dispensing with formality first, RTL remains first, 11.7% audience share, up from 11.6% year on year. The legacy news-talk channel has been national market leader in every survey period this century, probably longer. Nobody can remember when it wasn’t.

After that, audience movement was detected. Public broadcaster Radio France, on aggregate, grew to 23.9% audience share, up from 23.1%. Flagship news-talk channel France Inter, still number two, returned to double digits after three years, 10.1% audience share from 9.2% year on year. “Yes, we are very happy,” said Radio France programming director Frederic Schlesinger, quoted by ozap.com (November 18). France Inter “builds throughout the day, especially at major points. Political interviews and comedians are leaders.”

The France Bleu regional network ranked 5th, 7.1% aggregate audience share, up from 6.5%. France Culture and France Musiques were unchanged. All-news France Info dropped to 11th place nationally, 3.0% audience share from 3.3%. “I’m not worried about France Info,” said M.Schlesinger. “We see it remains a a reference point on the web. A video reporting the (Paris) bombings on the France Info website this weekend has been viewed 2.9 million times.”

The audience share losses for France Info coupled with significant dips for news-talk channels Europe 1 and RMC led some to conclude that national channels branded around news and current events are in big trouble. Europe 1, still ranked number three, dipped to 7.2% audience share from 7.5% year on year and RMC posted the biggest like period audience share loss of any national channel, 6.0% from 6.9%, 6th place from 4th one year on.

Europe 1 has had difficulty digesting show-host defections last year to RTL. RMC, apparently, got booted by very soft numbers for morning and evening sports-talk shows. France Info “adjusted” its news format last September, moving away from rolling-news with more feature material.

The September-October audience estimates are pronounced measures of the annual autumn re-boot - the rentrée - when broadcasters traditionally announce new schedules and people with games, contests and lots of advertising. All of this activity is meant to jolt French people from summer daze back to the radio. For the last three years, however, the September-October survey period nationally has attracted fewer listeners listening less. (See national reach - time spent listening trend chart here)

None of this negatively affected many French music channels, those under the NRJ Group umbrella particularly. Legacy hit music channel NRJ is now tied for 3rd place nationally with Europe 1, 7.2% audience share from 6.7% year on year. This is no record audience share for NRJ; several other music channels also posted gains.

“Last year there was more in the news giving more weight to the general interest channels,” said NRJ Group VP and Managing Director Maryam Salehi, quoted by Les Echos (November 18). Despite the dark forecasts about competition from Deezer and Spotify music stations, NRJ particularly, are doing well. With the strong growth in recent years in the number of smartphones, radio has become mobile.”

Fun Radio (RTL Group) jumped to 4.4% audience share and 5th place from 3.6% and 9th. Oldies channel Nostalgie (NRJ Group) was up to 4.1% audience share from 3.9% and sister channel adult contemporary Cherie FM posted 2.9% audience share from 2.4%. Even the hapless Virgin Radio (Lagardère) had its best showing since it was known as Europe 2, 2.5% up from 2.2% on year on. Skyrock and RTL2 were down slightly as RFM gained a bit.

See also in ftmKnowledge

Europe's Radio - Western Europe

Opportunity meets tradition in Western Europe's radio broadcasting. Change has come fast and yet oh, so slowly. This ftm Knowledge file contains material and resources on public and private radio broadcasting in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Liechtenstein, Netherlands and Switzerland. 244 pages. Resources. PDF (September 2013)

Order here

Media in France

French audiences are moving fast to every new platform. Mobile and Web media challenges the old guard while rule makers seek new directions. Media life in France... and a few secrets. includes updated Resources 147 pages PDF (November 2011)

Order here