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Radio show hosts in Spain have always received maximum attention. The fortunes of big national networks rise and fall with their stable of well-known personalities. When they change channels listeners, hopefully, change with them.
Venerable pop music channel Kiss FM this week tapped radio turned TV personality Frank Blanco to lead its morning show come September. He’d been with Los 40 Principales for 15 years before turning to TV. “There will be lots of laughs,” he told El Pais (July 16).
In the recently released rolling quarterly average national audience estimates from EGM/AIMC (Estudio General de Medios) Kiss FM ranked a lowly 12th place, 4.4% market share, down from 4.7% year on year. Ten years ago (October 2004-May 2005) Kiss FM ranked 6th nationally with 10.9% market share.
Top ranked in the October 2014-May 2015 report, as it has been for, like, forever, is Cadena SER, principally owned by big media house Prisa, owner of El Pais. It’s 35.5% market share is slightly off year on year from 35.9%. All the big news-talk channels in Spain, public and private, vie for the talents of recognized show hosts.
Second ranked Onda Cero, 18.5% market share lower year on year from 18.9%, “lost” show host Carlos Herrera in April, who will appear on Cadena Cope come September. Sr. Herrera had hosted the Onda Cero morning show since 2002. Cadena Cope ranks 4th nationally with 13.2% market share, down from 14.0% year on year. (See Spain national audience chart here)
Los 40 Principales held onto 3rd place nationally with 15.8% market share, down from 17.1% year on year. Ten years ago the channel, owned by Prisa, ranked 2nd in Spain with a 22.4% market share. Traditional Spanish music channel Cadena Dial, also owned by Prisa, ranked 5th nationally.
Public broadcaster RNE had a good showing. Main channel RNE ranked 8th nationally with 9.3% market share, up from 8.7% year on year. Youth channel Radio 3 and all-news channel Radio 5 were also up. Regional public channel Catalunya Radio was also up.
Radio is many things. Music, of course, is one but certainly challenged in the digital age by streaming services. Speech-based radio, from news and talk to drama and comedy, has a special hold on. Listeners, though, change channels to create their own soundscapes.
They’re still number one; French national news-talk channel RTL, that is. The Médiamétrie national radio audience estimates for the May-June period released this week showed the record-holding top rated channel with 11.8% market share, up from 11.1% year on year. Show host changes last autumn continue to pay-off. Overall, national audience reach during the period rose to 81.1% from 80.6%, Monday through Friday average time spent listening unchanged at 2 hours 55 minutes.
France Inter stayed number two. The national news-talk channel of public broadcaster Radio France hit 8.8% market share, up from 8.5% one year on. Third place in the national survey went to Europe 1, 7.6% market share, down from 8.2%. Show host changes continue to plague. Legacy hit music channel NRJ held 4th position with 7.4% market share, down from 7.8%. Sports talk and business news channel RMC remained in 5th place, 6.6% market share, up from 6.5%.
Listener reaction to the four-week industrial action at Radio France last April that left speech-based channels speechless was muted looking at year to year results. Radio France channels on aggregate were lower at 21.3% market share from 21.8%. Regional network France Bleu placed 6th with 6.2% market share from 6.5% one year on. All-news France Info was unchanged at 3.0%, France Culture at 1.2% from 1.6%, France Musique up a bit at 1.0% market share. (See French national radio audience trends charts here)
National commercial channels benefited on aggregate, 74.0% market share from 73.7%. Pop oldies channel Nostalige held 7th position, unchanged year on year at 4.3% market share. Fun Radio, 8th place, was up a slice at 4.2% market share, followed by RFM, unchanged at 3.4%, and Skyrock, also 3.4%, off from 3.7% year on year. Virgin Radio, inexplicably, rose to 2.3% market share. No records were set.
More dramatic were quarter-to-quarter changes, worth noting but, still, comparing apples to oranges. Radio France channels most affected by the strikes shows significantly lower market shares. France Inter lost 1.0% market share quarter-to-quarter, regional network France Bleu off 0.7% market share, France Info down 0.3% and France Culture 0.4% lower. The net beneficiaries - again, quarter-to-quarter - were Nostalgie and pop-rock channel RTL2, which during April offered a promotionally active 20th anniversary.
Broadcast audio quality generally gets short shrift. As listening devices shrink smaller than thumbnails attention to audio detail often falls on nearly-deaf ears. Streaming through the digital drumbeat has long been the assumption that quality is just something in the code.
The engineers are paying attention. “The role that sound plays in the media is under-estimated,” said ITU Radiocommunications Bureau director François Rancy following a recent workshop on the future of audio in broadcasting. Experts assembled by the ITU (July 15) talked about “immersive audio” and “object based coding,” which, apparently, will let people adapt audio to their liking. It’s all to make ultra-high definition TV even more amazing. (See ITU presser here)
Music legend Neil Young, not participating in the ITU workshop, is fed up with the current state of digital audio quality. “I don’t need my music to be devalued by the worst quality in the history of broadcasting or any other form of distribution,” he complained via a social media post. He’s lifting all his tunes from all streaming services. “It’s about sound quality.”
“I was there. AM (medium wave) radio kicked streaming’s ass,” he continued. Digital algorithms essential to IP distribution as well as DAB broadcasting produce a rather “flat” sound.
News apps for smartphones are the new flavor of the week. Streaming music was last week’s strawberry chocolate crunch. Nobody remembers what came before, such is the way of the mobile miracle. Of course, everybody wants to know what will come next. It will, in buckets.
The number of smartphone news apps available around the world is truly uncountable. New to the venue, and attracting delicious attention, is the Apple News app, resident on the proprietary iOS9 operating system. Most tech reviewers were, well, OK with it. News hounds like that it’s curated by real people. Design is, naturally, very Apple.
The BBC’s international news app was re-released last week. It offers to iOS and Android smartphones audio, video and text from BBC’s renowned news gathering. BBC World Service radio is also streamed within. The international version compliments a domestic UK version. The BBC News app has been downloaded 40 million times since first offered in 2012, said the BBC presser.
With Facebook, Google and a plethora of news apps from publishers the market is certainly crowded. And not all news app start-ups survive. One to recently take that inevitable hiatus is Circa News, founded in 2011 as something new and different. “Producing high-quality news can be a costly endeavor and without the capital necessary to support further production we are unable to continue,” said CEO and founder Matt Galligan, quoted by wired.com (June 24). (See more about mobile media here)
“Most people like news and use news, but they don't want to pay for it, don't want to see advertising around it, and don't want to see it mixed up with sponsored content,” observed a recent Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism study of news users in 12 countries. More than two-thirds of smartphone users in the countries surveyed had downloaded news apps though only one-third use them at least once a week. “This means sustainable business models remain elusive even for those who succeed in building an audience.”
National media regulators may suspend from distribution television broadcasts that incite hatred, determined the European Commission. The Radio and Television Commission of Lithuania (LRTK) temporarily banned re-broadcasting of RTR Planeta, a Russian-language channel produced by Russian Federation state broadcaster VGTRK. The decision sets a legal precedent as satellite broadcaster Viasat, distributor in Lithuania of RTR Planeta and other channels from Russian state broadcasters and part of Modern Times Group (MTG), initially resisted the LRTK decision, claiming jurisdiction in the UK.
"The measures taken by Lithuania are not discriminatory and are proportionate,” said the decision document released by Digital Economy and Society commissioner Guenther Oettinger. "Lithuania has therefore sufficiently demonstrated that there have been infringements of manifest, serious and grave character of the prohibition of incitement to hatred.” The Audiovisual Media Services (AVMS) Directive allows under Article 6 restrictions to freedom of expression in cases of “incitement of hatred based on race or nationality.”
National regulators in the Baltic countries have struggled with legal and policy issues regarding re-transmission of television programs produced in the Russian Federation and distributed by companies incorporated in EU Member States. Press freedom advocates have generally opposed blanket bans of television programs, however untoward.
"We will now feel very strong in court in case of such decisions since we've create a precedent with this decision,” said LRTK chairperson Edmundas Vaitekunas, quoted by delfi.lt (July 14). “Now it's clear that the decision was right and in compliance with all procedures.”
MTG has been forced to shed its 39% holding of Russian TV broadcaster CTC Media at a considerable loss.
During the rule of notorious Yugoslav dictator Slobodan Milosevic Belgrade radio station B92 was noted and oft quoted for its independent reporting. With greater confidence in a new Serbia it became a reference point for broadcasting, successfully entering both online platforms and television. Last week the station’s management effectively ended news programming in favor of an all-music format.
“A sad day,” noted the Journalists Association of Serbia (UNS), on its website (July 11). Twelve staff members were notified last week and given a severance payment. A company spokesperson said “a brand new musical concept” will soon be introduced. (See more about media in Serbia here)
In 2009 Greek media house Antenna Group acquired the majority stake in B92 and TV Prva held by Media Development Loan Fund (MDLF, now known as Media Development Investment Fund) and others. Rumors surfaced earlier this month that private equity buy-out specialist KKR is in line to acquire B92 and TV Prva after taking an interest in several Serbian online portals last year, complimenting its cable TV holdings. The Serbian government recently advertized for bids to privatize nearly all municipal and regional radio stations, television stations and newspapers.
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