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ftm Radio Page - week ending January 8, 2021

Media And The Virus: Listening Different, Up and Down

Life is not fair. The coronavirus upheaval took that to the extreme. Millions of people became ill, sometimes desperately, just from breathing. Hundreds of thousands died. Nothing should minimumize the loss to their families, friends and colleagues. Nothing can understate the grief and anxiety. The social cost has been immense.

collective listeningAs the media sector, broadly, relies for its existence on the attentions of real people the ensuing upheaval, largely, brought new media to the fore and staggered traditional media. There have been winners and losers. The media world, at first, came unmoored from their usual constituents. As cinemas closed, film fans flocked to streaming services more nimble than traditional TV broadcasters. Newspapers lost home delivery and city kiosks distributing their products as digital platforms, mostly, roared. People took up reading books. Retail advertising budgets were slashed, rearranged for online commerce.

As the big news about the coronavirus remained something happening half a world away, radio broadcasting weathered the initial impact. Listeners attached to familiar voices stayed tuned-in. As the month of March arrived, the story was no longer distant. Italy’s prime minister Giuseppe Conte ordered the whole of Lombardy, north-central Italy, and several surrounding provinces locked-down for a month, reported Corriere della Sera (March 8, 2020). People in the region, understandably, had questions, mostly specific to their immediate needs. A local community radio station aimed to serve.

Historic parish radio station Radio Codogno, in the city of the same name, began 30 minute twice daily broadcasts called Radio Zona Rossa - Radio Red Zone - filled with practical information, official announcements and general news, reported inews24.it (March 1, 2020). Codogno, with 15,000 residents, was the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, quarantined since February 22nd. The Red Zone quarantine orders issued then were superseded by the prime minister’s decree.

“A piece of the analog world still have much to say today to unite those who feel isolated and feel feelings of fear,” said Radio Codogno spokesperson Massimo Scaglioni to Vatican Radio (March 1, 2020). The station “has been providing useful information in a moment of disorientation for the entire community.” The Radio Zona Rossa programs continued on Radio Codogno for several weeks, lapsing as spring turned to summer. In November the programs returned, limited to once weekly, “by virtue of the emergency situation.”

Radio broadcasters, again, tapped into the collective mood. When every Italian radio channel simultaneously broadcast the national anthem (March 13), Italians placed radios on their balconies to share the presentation, which included traditional Italian favorites like Nei Dipinto di Blu (Volare). After the broadcast ships of the Italian navy at seven bases blew horns and rang bells.

Further reflecting that spirit, Dutch public radio channel NPO 3FM morning DJ Sander Hoogendoorn proposed all Dutch radio morning shows play the same song at the same time. His inspiration came from a speech by Prime Minister Mark Rutte (March 16) reminding citizens to “take care of each other.” Radio broadcasting is unique as the solo-collective medium: listeners alone with their preferred listening device.

“You’ll Never Walk Alone would be the first choice, because it could appeal to those who are doing an incredible job in health care at the moment, who are sick or who can’t leave their homes,” said DJ Hoogendoorn, quoted by Bavarian daily Süddeutche Zeitung (March 20).

All NPO channels participated, along with Dutch private channels Radio Veronica, Radio 538, Radio 10, QMusic, 100%NL and many local stations. They were joined by German regional public radio channels WDR2, WDR4, 1Live and others, including national public channel Deutschlandfunk Kultur. All Austrian public radio ORF channels, various public channels in Lithuania, Finland, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Portugal, Switzerland, Ireland, Denmark as well as BBC Radio 1, Radio 2 and 6Music participated. Several public and private radio channels in Spain, Belgium, Georgia, Cyprus, including Estonian public channel Raadio 2, Polish state radio channel Czworka, Turkey’s state radio channel TRT Radyo and Slovenian public channel VAL 202 took part. The total came to 183 radio channels across Europe and beyond.

“Don’t cry now, Hoogie,” said DJ Hoogendoorn introducing the Gerry and the Pacemakers version of the tune just before 9 o’clock in the morning local time, reported Dutch daily De Telegraaf (March 20). “This is for all professional fillers, all cleaners, all meal deliverers, agents, not to forget our heros in healthcare and education. You are not alone.” The initiative was selected radio moment of the year by Dutch media program De Perstribune (December 27).

Radio broadcasters, too, came face-to-face with the coronavirus, now commonly referred to as COVID-19. Polish state broadcaster Radio 24 sent most employees home when a colleague tested positive. Studios used for Radio 24 broadcasts were to be “disinfected again,” said Polskie Radio president Agniezka Kaminska, quoted by onet.pl (March 26).

But health concerns were not the only reason broadcasters were sending employees home. The Danish NRJ and MTV Radio franchises dumped its DJs in March. “We hope there will be better times so that we can hire them all again in a year and a half,” said president and co-owner Philip Lundsgaard, by Danish tabloid Ekstrabladot (March 16). “Our hosts are not fired because they are bad. They are being fired because we are in the biggest crisis ever.” He cited a two week lock-down that shut many businesses who were then not particularly interested in buying advertising.

Radio advertising - like all advertising except online - was falling dramatically. Radio broadcasters were caught off-guard. The Swedish Media Agency Barometer report for April 2020 showed radio ad spending falling 41.4% over 2019. With that in mind, Bauer Media/Sweden chief executive Ted Johnsson suggested the possibility of switching off transmitters in sparsely populated areas. Bauer Media owns and operates several radio channels in Sweden. “It is clear that we feel abandoned,” he said to Swedish Radio P1 (June 2). “Then we are forced to prioritize, and a priority will then be to review where we can afford to send in the future.”

Various government-sponsored media support programs established to compensate for the resulting economic disturbance, including in Sweden, have almost uniformly “abandoned” privately-owned radio broadcasters. Newspapers were “prioritized.” Public broadcasters were told to cut costs.

Public broadcaster Radio France had been mired for months in protracted negotiations with labor union CGT. Early in the year there had been a two month employee strike. It was called off by the union in March due to the coronavirus pandemic. When negotiations resumed in May, sticking points remained the same; staffing and pension plans.

Those talks drew to an abrupt halt at the end of May. Radio France president Sibyle Veil put them on hold. “Continuing to be there for our listeners, in solidarity with them, must be the first of our priorities,” said her statement, quoted by AFP (May 28). “This is why I decided that we would not resume social negotiations on our internal issues for the time being.”

Audience measurement, financed by broadcasters, was curtailed or halted in the spring. Major measurement institutes - Médiamétrie (France), RAJAR (UK), AG.MA (Germany), AIMC (Spain) - cited the challenges of fieldwork. “We didn’t take the decision lightly,” said German public broadcaster ARD chairman Tom Buhrow in a statement, quoted by radiowoche.de (June 4). “Especially with regard to the Corona crisis, we know from internal surveys that the medium of radio is booming and that public service offers are more popular than ever before.” AG.MA audience surveys would be off-line for a year.

With no audience ratings to forward to the media buying bots - also known as programmatic advertising platforms - and fewer rowdy DJs and show hosts around radio broadcasters en masse turned to podcasts, producing and distributing. Subjects ranged from the informational and educational to drama and comedy. True crime and murder mysteries are popular. Many were long-form audio sales pitches. Popularity among those already distracted from reality by mobile devices was instant. Media buyers found something to attract clients’ money without concern about raising the ire of regulators. By the end of the year both Amazon and Spotify had acquired proprietary podcast producers. Every publisher compiles regular lists of the most popular to keep folks refreshing that app.

Perhaps under the pressures of confinement anxiety, a few audience measurement services began releasing small doses later in the year. Because of competing methodologies, comparisons with measurement by electronic device (i.e. bots), which largely continued through the year. is a bit dicey. The weekly Kantar SIFO radio reach measurement in Sweden, for example, has showed all radio audience dropping to 60.9%, 3.5% lower year on year, reported radionytt.se (January 4). Aggregate reach share for national commercial channels was hammered; 26.2% in the last week of the year, down 8.9%. Radio channels of public broadcaster SR showed aggregate reach of 45.3% in the final week, up slightly.

Portugal’s Marktest Bareme quarterly radio audience estimates continued into 2020. Overall gross weekly reach dropped through the year from 84.2% in December 2019, to 80.1% in April and 78.6% in June. By September, reported in November, weekly reach had rebounded somewhat to 80.9%. National commercial channels have long dominated. The two big ones - RFM and Radio Comercial - switched places by significant margins; non-stop music RFM lower, general interest Radio Comercial higher. Third place M80 jumped, year on year, to 9.2% audience hare from 7.0% on a music format change to pop oldies. Dance hop-hop channel Mega Hits took a significant hit.

Audience estimates from French measurement institute Médiamétrie for the September-October period confirmed several expected trends. Total listening 13 years and older reached an historic lo, 75.2%. Five years earlier it was 80.8%. Average time spent listening also dropped. Within that all channels of public broadcaster Radio France gained with main general interest channel France Inter taking the top spot away from commercial channel RTL. All-news public channel France Info gained while news/talk RMC continued to slide. Legacy hit music channel NRJ held 3rd place, dropping slightly in audience share, while several marginal music channels fell precipitously.

Market researcher IPSOS delivered a different take on long-term radio listening. Its most recent chapter of a three-year study in the Dutch-speaking Belgian region of Flanders shows the “lockdown radio phenomenon” being a gift to digital radio. Interview data was collected from mid-September through the end of October in the three years from 2018. Working from home, it concluded, trimmed nearly half an hour from in-car listening between 2020 and 2019 and 45 minutes daily from listening at work. Radio listening at home in 2020 increased 36% over 2019. DAB+ and online channels were boosted while time spent listening to FM channels dropped to 55% from 69%. Listening to cable radio channels effectively vanished. With FM listening largely the domain of the automobile, when it stays in the garage FM listening drops.

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