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The Tickle File is ftm's daily column of media news, complimenting the feature articles on major media issues. Tickle File items point out media happenings, from the oh-so serious to the not-so serious, that should not escape notice...in a shorter, more informal format.

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Week of July 11, 2016

Nation afflicted, media in the middle
live coup on Facebook

The Dogan Medya Center near Istanbul was briefly visited early Saturday morning by several soldiers participating in the weekend coup attempt. The building is home to daily newspaper Hürriyet, Dogan News Agency and television channels CNNTürk and Kanal D, all owned by Dogan Media Group. The soldiers arrived by helicopter, according to CNNTürk news anchor Basak Sengül, quoted by bianet.org (July 16).

Media workers were directed to leave the building and all-news CNNTürk went dark at about 0330 local time. A large crowd unsympathetic to the attempted coup gathered outside the building, many entering the building with police officers. CNNTürk resumed news coverage after about an hour.

Unbeknown to the occupying soldiers the CNNTürk signal, dark in the traditional sense, was quite live on Facebook Live, crowd noises and gun shots but not much else. The decision to employ Facebook Live was made several hours earlier as the coup attempt became known. About half of Turks, 39 million, are daily Facebook users. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube appeared to be blocked for an hour or two in some areas, internet service generally slowed to a crawl. (See more about media in Turkey here)

State TV TRT’s Ankara facilities had been visited earlier. News reader Tijen Karakas was forced to read a statement at gunpoint. “Our hands were tied from behind,” she said, quoted by cumhuriyet.com.tr (July 16). The soldiers surrendered to police several hours later.

Turksat’s Ankara uplink was briefly occupied, shutting down satellite communications.

Listening up as market leaders shift
sports up, of course

Italian national radio market leader RTL 102.5 has moved ever closer to 7 million daily listeners in the recently released GfK Eurisko Radiomonitor. Contemporary hit music channel RTL 102.5 has led the national radio ratings forever. Daily reach was up 3.8% to 6.996 million. The first half 2016 results showed overall daily listening up 1.9% year on year to 67.3% of the population.

Radio Deejay moved into 2nd place in the national survey, up 3.7% in daily reach to 4.849 million listeners. Radio 105 also moved up one spot to 3rd as RDS (Radio Dimensione Suono) dropped to 4th, daily reach off 3%. Radio Italia kept 5th place nationally, off 1.8% in daily reach.

Public broadcaster RAI held 6th and 7th places with general interest RadioUno and contemporary RadioDue, respectively. Neither channel budged much in the daily reach figures. Culture channel RadioTre, by contrast, gained 3.3% in daily reach year on year, ranking 15th in the national survey. Traffic and weather information channel RAI Isoradio dropped 14% in daily reach.

Rock music channel Virgin Radio Italia was up slightly in daily reach for 8th position. All-news Radio 24 broke the 2 million (2.011 million) daily listeners mark for the first time and held 9th place. Dance music channel Radio Kiss Kiss was up 8.5% in daily reach (1.991 million) one year on for the 10th spot. (See updated GfK Radio Monitor figures in Italy – Radio Broadcasting here)

Bubbling under the top ten R101 and regional general interest channel Radio Subasio made notable gains in daily reach, “infotainment” Radio Capital was unchanged and dance music channel m20 was pounded with a 7.5% loss. R101 is part of the newly formed RadioMediaset that combines radio holdings of Mondadori with Gruppo Finelco’s Radio Monte Carlo (RMC). Radio Capital, m2o and Radio DeeJay are owned by major Italian media house Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso. (See more about media in Italy here)

Quasi-national sports-talk channel Radio Sportiva jumped 26% in daily reach year on year to just short of the magic million listeners (988,000). The channel is part of Media Hit, operator of several local stations. principally owned by Loriano Bessi. Radio Sportiva holds Series A, Series B and Lega Pro football rights. It was launched in 2010 and is, surprisingly, the only privately-owned all-sports radio channel in Italy.

Also make notable gains was Radio Zeta L’Italiana, daily reach up nearly 12% one year on and pushing toward that million listener benchmark (832,000). Over the course of the last year the station evolved, in name at least, from regional station RTL L’Italiana to Radio Zeta to Radio Zeta L’Italiana. FM distribution expanded, first through a frequency sharing plan with RTL 102.5, which acquired the station in October 2015, then two smaller stations after a failed attempt to buy national channel R101 from Mondadori, now RadioMediaset. RTL 102.5 president and principal shareholder Lorenzo Suraci is Radio Zeta L’Italiana’s artistic director.

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