Pop music less popular on the radio

Michael Hedges April 27, 2009

Radio listeners are connecting with music channels, just not the ones you would expect. Anxiety bitten broadcasters, honing playlists to 300 of the best researched titles, can’t stop the audience drift. Maybe they are asking the wrong questions.

With the release of Médiamétrie’s January to March radio audience survey for Ile-de-France (Greater Paris) (April 25) the trend for standard brand national music channels looks bleak. Mirroring the national radio survey, released a week earlier (April 17), news and talk channels continued to gain market share. Two stations, off the customary radar, tell a different story.

The major audience trend in French radio – and elsewhere – is toward speech-based channels. The top four radio channels in the most recent Ile-de-France audience survey are largely news and talk stations: RTL, France Inter, Europe 1 and RMC. The top three haven’t changed this decade. RTL is implacably top rated, as it is in the national audience survey. It’s 13.3% market share, down from 14.1% one year on, sets an absolute. The topped-up and fighting public channel France Inter soared to a 10.4% market share from 9.8%, breaching the ten share bar but remaining number two. Europe 1, again, placed third with 9.6% markets share, up from 9.4% year on year.

RMC placed fourth, more than doubling its market share in five years. In one year RMC’s market share in the Ile-de-France region increased to 6.5% from 4%. There is something to be said for being the – relatively – new kid on the block. Rolling news France Info dropped to 4.5% market share from 5.1% one year on.

National music channels, Skyrock excepted, took the brunt of the audience shift. Skyrock maintained 5th place while gaining to 5.2% from 5.0% year on year. Compared with the September to December survey results, Skyrock dropped from 5.8%. RFM and Fun Radio dropped the most. RFM’s market share fell to 2.8% (10th) from 4.6% and Fun Radio is now 19th with a 1.3% market share down from 2.7% year on year. (See the top 20 trend here)

Two national channels surged, one unexpectedly and one not quite. RMC placed 4th in the Ile-de-France region with 6.5% market share, up from 4.0% one year on. It has been climbing steadily and looks to be positioned as a challenger to the legacy national news and talk channels. Radio Classique’s jump in the audience figures surprised everybody, out ranking NRJ and Nostalgie among persons 9 to 79. Jumping to 4.2% market share from 2.5% one year on the channel demonstrates how nothing in the French radio market should be taken for granted.

Radio Classique has been on the air as a national channel from the early 1980’s. Since 2005 it has slowly adapted more active morning and afternoon slots with well-known voices and a bit of news, mostly business oriented. It is the most low-key radio channel in France. And, yes, it features classical music. The founders bolted public channel France Musique for talking more about music than playing it.

RMC is a news and talk channel, also with a bent toward business and finance. After technical upgrading over several years it now has respectable national coverage. Luxury goods marketer Möet Hennessey Louis Vuitton (LVMH) owns Radio Classique, along with business daily Les Echos.  LVHM had owned the much weaker La Tribune, also business oriented, and sold it in 2007 to Alain Weill’s NextRadioTV when Les Echos was purchased from Pearson. NextRadioTV owns RMC and CEO Alain Weill spent formidable years with NRJ Group.

Among local Paris stations TSF Jazz now has the biggest market share, 1.9% (ranked 12th) from 1.5% year on year. It and local station Oui FM were among only five to gain a half share or more over the January – March period 2008. The other three were RMC (gaining 2.5% one year on), France Inter (2.2%) and Radio Classique (1.7%).

TSF Jazz is terminally hip and considered by jazz fans as one of if not the best jazz radio station in the world. Owned by Novagroup, which also owns the avant-garde local Paris music station Radio Nova, TSF Jazz was once associated with the Communist Party. In tough economic times that could be a brand strength.