Commercial radio takes another hit

Michael Hedges April 28, 2009 Follow on Twitter

Lousy music and too many bad commercials drive listeners away. So do stupid DJs. None of this is new for radio programmers. The bigger threat to commercial radio is consolidation, too few channels all sounding alike. It could be fatal.

Sweden’s SIFO Research released first quarter audience figures – called II 2009 – and the market share for commercial radio sank to 28.3% from 30.4% one year on. Public broadcasting Sverige Radio (SR) increased its market share to 64.9% from 63%. Average time spent listening to all radio has fallen to 148 minutes from 159 minutes in the same period 2005. The research provider changed along the way and methodological differences could account for some of the difference.

The brief history of Sweden’s commercial radio is the story of consolidation. Two companies – SBS/ProSiebenSat and Modern Times Group (MTG) – own or operate virtually all of the stations once licensed as private local radio (PLR), mostly as four quasi-national channels. The several dozen local radio stations originally licensed in 1993 fell to consolidation as initial investment was spent and ad revenue great enough to support it all never materialized. SBS owns 44 stations and MTG 45.

Recent changes in Sweden’s commercial radio audience landscape are largely due to shuffling frequencies among the existing owners.  RIX FM dropped to 13.4% reach from 17.2% in like periods one year on mostly on several of the RIX FM frequencies being given up for the Mix Megapol format when SBS took over the Stampen Group stations which had been broadcasting MTG’s RIX FM program. SBS Radio A/B, a wholly owned subsidiary of SBS/ProSiebenSat, sold 20% of its equity to Stampen Group.  SBS also consolidated the Radio City stations, which had a 7.7% reach in the first quarter 2008, into the Mix Megapol format.

Mix Megapol, now 2nd place among commercial channels in terms of gross reach, gain a bit, quite logically, now with 10.3% reach up from 9.7% reach one year on. “They (Mix Megapol),” said MTG program director Christer Modig to Dagens Media, “only managed to pick up half (from RIX FM), and it is so clearly not good for commercial radio.”

MTG has done its share of frequency and format shuffling. In an operating agreement with NRJ Group, the RIX FM format appears on 10 of the NRJ owned stations. Several of the Lugna Favoriter frequencies, once owned by RTL, were ceded to RIX FM. NRJ has a 1.9% reach, down from 2.1% one year on, and Lugna Favoriter 2.8%, down from 4.0%. (See national audience chart here)

Public broadcaster SR benefits, perhaps, from the dearth of choice on the commercial side and the shuffling of format brands to and from FM frequencies. SR’s P4 network of local and regional channels holds a 30.6% reach, up from 30.2% one year on. News and talk SR P1 increased reach to 11.3% from 10.9% and pop music SR P3 increased to 10.4% reach from 10.2%. Classical music and arts channel SR P2 held 1.4% reach.

“To increase (listening), we need more stations,” said MTG’s Modig. “It is a political process that both we and the SBS are working hard with. Swedes have now a poor choice of commercial radio.”

The SIFO radio audience survey (II 2009) was conducted January 19th through March 29th interviewing persons 9 to 79 years of age.