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The final chapter on Athens radio station VFM finally closed this week as the Greek broadcast regulator National Council for Radio and Television (ESR) officially revoked its license, reported media portal e-tetradio.g (January 20). VFM has been off the air since December 2012, forced by the bankruptcy of owner Liberis Group. Pirate broadcasters appropriated the FM frequency, something the ESR has never liked.
Several Greek radio stations have tumbled into bankruptcy in recent years becoming distressed properties owned by banks. Liberis Group also owned Best FM, as well as newspapers and news portals. Best FM employees essentially took over the station when buyers could not be found, a solution allowed under Greek law when worker's salaries remain unpaid. An auction for VFM attracted no bidders, largely due to high debts. The license revocation is the first for an Athens radio station since 2001. (See more about media in Greece here)
Dormant Athens radio station Flash 96 returned to the airwaves earlier in January, operated by a cooperative of former employees. It had been off the air since November 2012. Several FM frequencies throughout Greece vacated by the government closure of public broadcaster ERT have become a playland for pirates.
French media watchers paid less than usual attention as Médiamétrie released Greater Paris (Ile de France - IDF) radio listening estimates for the period September through December. Most are waiting for first quarter results, which will show effects from the dreadful murderous attacks in Paris that stunned the whole of France. Indeed, market share rankings year on year were largely unchanged even as overall listening dropped to 77.4% from 79.6%. Average time spent listening was up slightly.
The big national general interest channels - largely news, talk and related variations - lost audience share on aggregate, dropping to 40.0% of all listening from 42.9%. Within that grouping defined by Médiamétrie there were no changes in rankings though individual channels swung rather dramatically. RTL kept top spot, increasing audience share one year on to 13.4% from 12.4%. The others, generally at the top of overall rankings, all lost audience share; public radio channel France Inter (2nd place) dropped to 9.8% audience share from 11.1%, Europe 1 (3rd) fell to 8.9% audience share from 10.1% and RMC (4th) posted 7.0%, down from 7.9%.
Public regional network France Bleu, also among the general interest channels but with limited coverage in the IDF, dropped to 0.9% from 1.5% year on year. FIP, the Paris-oriented public station, jumped to 2.9% - reaching 10th in the ranking, best showing in several years - from 2.2%. FIP programs a rather eclectic music mix along with local newscasts. All-news national public channel France Info held 5th place in the IDF audience share rankings, up to 4.9% from 4.4%. France Culture and France Musiques were also up one year on. On aggregate Radio France channels dropped in audience share to 23.0% from 23.4%. (See IDF radio audience trend chart here)
Among music channels, NRJ kept 5th place in the IDF rankings with 5.0%, up slightly. Skyrock was unchanged at 4.1% and 7th place. Radio Classique moved to 8th with 3.7%, up from 3.2% and Nostalgie bolted to 9th with 3.1% audience share, up from 2.4%. Most other national music channels were either up or down slightly except RTL2, which fell to 2.0% from 2.4%. On aggregate the national music channels were up slightly to 25.4% audience share from 24.8% year on year.
Audience shares for local channels, as usual, moved around quite a bit. Generations, Oui FM and suburb-oriented Evasion made noticeable gains while Radio Nova was unchanged. Radio Latina, regularly at the head of the local radio list, was off slightly and TSF Jazz was significantly lower, perhaps effected by the gains for FIP. On aggregate stations defined by Médiamétrie as local increased market share to 18.2% from 17.4% one year on.
A fixture in British media disappeared this week as tabloid Sun did not publish its notorious Page Three photos of young, attractive and quite typically topless young women. Media watchers around the world - well, not exactly - noticed. The Page Three nudies have appeared each week for 44 years, commencing shortly after Rupert Murdoch acquired the newspaper.
The Sun's Page Three still exists, slightly toned-down in the print edition with frolicking babes in bikinis and in usual form on the website. The change was acknowledged in the Times, also owned by News UK. "This comes from high up, from New York," said an anonymous senior executive, quoted by the Guardian (January 20). News UK is owned by News Corporation and was known as News International before June 2013.
Internal research by News UK, cited by the Independent (January 20), showed regular Sun readers holding a favorable opinion of the Page Three girls. The Sun battles the Daily Mail for top honors in the British tabloid circulation war. News Of The World, the tabloid owned by News International, was closed after phone hacking and other charges in 2011. The Page Three decision, noted most UK media watchers, could be "reversed" if circulation is affected. "It's a movable feast," said an anonymous spokesperson for the Sun to the Wall Street Journal (January 20). And it was. The Sun's Page Three tittie shots returned Thursday (January 22), a decision ascribed to "the boss" not wanting to give those who have lobbied for political correctness one tiny victory. The Wall Street Journal is also owned by News Corporation. (See more about Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation here)
The right-wing troglodyte blogosphere, noting the change, ranted about "political correctness gone mad," a subject near and dear to Mr. Murdoch - The Elder. "Political correctness makes for denial and hypocrisy," he expressed on social media (January 10) in the quite different context of the Charlie Hebdo staff murders in Paris. Critics of political correctness (PC) in the current pejorative sense yearn for the days when chauvinism and hate-speech prevailed.
Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo expressed frustration with media incorrectness to CNN's Christiane Amanpour this week (January 20). US cable channel Fox News, owned by 21st Century Fox, made assertions in several recent programs about "no-go" zones for non-Muslims in Paris. "The image of Paris has been prejudiced," she said suggesting legal action could be forthcoming. Fox News "experts" similarly sullied the reputation of Birmingham in the UK leading prime minister David Cameron to label them "complete idiots."
The success of a lawsuit against Fox News in the US is highly unlikely. Fox News is directed, with some autonomy, by former Republican Party operative Roger Ailes. Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff offered several years ago that the Sun editorially represents The Elder's worldview rather than the Times. Fox News is certainly in the equation, perhaps more ego than id.
The digital revolution has been with us - some more than others - for a quarter of a century. Newspaper and magazine publishers have bourn, certainly in their own regard, the brunt. Back before the turn of the century digital media was the next big thing. Today, it's things.
"The old publishing model only works in print," observed German publishing scion Hubert Burda at the Digital Life Design conference in Munich, quoted by dpa (January 19). "You have to find out what things people online want to pay for. You have to connect (the business) to everything, even the fridge."
Supporting that theme was online ride-share service Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, who offered conference participants a €20 rebate for their first ride. Alas, there were long waits in Munich, reported Bloomberg (January 19). "We've had particular difficulty growing supply here in Munich," said Mr. Kalanick, who also predicted his company would soon add 50,000 jobs if European regulators would just open the door.
Conferences on any subject this century always have a digital spin and always include serious shout-outs to seizing or catching that entrepreneurial spirit. Speakers emerged in all that tend to wax philosophical. Times of war and times of peace, for example, yield different results, said VC Ben Horowitz. "Start-ups prevail in times of war."
Herr Burda has just released a book on the digital revolution, which he calls "as big as Gutenberg." Hubert Burda Media sponsors the annual Digital Life Design conference.
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