ftm Radio Page - week ending March 3, 2023

Emergency services administrators give support to AM/MW broadcasting
a little static better than silence

A generation ago - more actually - Baby Boomers celebrated the arrival of FM radio in song and verse. “No static at all.” Broadcasters fell all over themselves buying new transmitters and building new towers. The golden age of AM/MW radio passed into the history books, for those who still read.

AM/MW radio remains important for emergency services, groused the Wall Street Journal (WSJ)(February 27). And car manufacturers are pulling them from dashboards, citing engineering issues with the motors on electric vehicles (EVs). There’s noise. Once we called that static.

Former US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) administrators expressed their concerns in a recent letter to US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Signals for all the new online services, they said, quickly fail during natural disasters and extreme weather events. “Should this continue, it will represent a grave threat to future local, state, and federal disaster response and relief efforts.” (See more about radio audiences here)

Broadcasters are shutting down AM/FM transmitters as fast as they can. They always cite costs. Bauer Media in the UK has eliminated AM/MW broadcasts for its Absolute Radio brand. TalkSport has asked permission from regulator Ofcom to do the same. Digital radio advocates, looking to burnish green credentials for Gen Z (Zoomers), cite energy efficiencies. And it’s true. DAB+ transmitters are far less expensive to operate than AM/MW transmitters and towers. They also break as easily as cellphone installations.

When tropical Cyclone Gabrielle struck New Zealand and Vanuatu in February virtually all communications were lost. The AM/MW network of public broadcaster RNZ kept going. "As Cyclone Gabrielle has highlighted, AM transmission is a vital piece of infrastructure that ensures people have timely access to critical information in emergency scenarios,” said Broadcasting Minister Willie Jackson to RNZ (March 1).

Still, the New Zealand Parliament is has put AM/MW transmissions on the table. "It is, you know, an irony that in a week when New Zealand got probably one of its biggest ever lessons about the importance of AM that we have this challenge around its viability," said RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson. He added that AM/MW broadcasts get into “nooks and crannies” that even FM cannot penetrate.

Court corrects regulator on broadcaster takeover
end of uncertainty

The legal battle over Polish media house Agora acquiring radio broadcaster Eurozet has come to a conclusion. Affirming an earlier lower court decision the Court of Appeals struck down a competition regulator’s ruling to halt Agora from taking a majority stake in Eurozet, owner of five Polish radio channels. The “ruling is final,” noted media news portal Wirtualnemedia (February 27).

Agora SA publishes major daily Gazeta Wyborcza, originally founded in 1989. The company also publishes daily free sheet Metro and leading online portal Gazeta PL. Editorially, Gazeta Wyborcza has traversed from being the main media channel for the anti-communist Solidarity movement to a center-left liberal position. It has been reliably critical of the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS) that controls the government and its agencies. (See more about media in Poland here)

Immediately after the court ruling was made public Agora announced it had acquired an 11% stake in Eurozet, bringing its total to 51% and a board majority. This will allow Agora to acquire the remaining Eurozet holdings from SFS Ventures. “The acquisition… no longer required the consent of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK).” Agora had attempted a call option for the remaining Eurozet shares two years but the UOKiK president stopped it cold, citing potential for Agora and RMF Group, a significant radio broadcaster, acting in concert within the advertising market. (See more about mergers and acquisitions here)

Agora Radio Group president Maciej Strzelecki was also immediately named president of Eurozet. Agora has been operating local radio networks Radio Zlote Przeboje, Radio Organizacja and Rock Radio, along with quasi-national news/talk channel Tok FM, currently ranked second in the national RadioTrack national audience estimates behind RMF. Eurozet operates five radio channels; Radio Zet, Antyradio, Chillizet, Meloradio and Radio Plus. In 2019 SFS Ventures and Agora acquired Eurozet from Czech Media Invest, which had acquired several broadcast and publishing assets from Lagardère.

Radio Page week ending February 24, 2023
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Recently added radio audience figures and resources

• France - National Radio Audience (September/October 2022 - released November 2022)
  national channels, sectors, market share, reach/TSL
• UK - London Radio Audience (Q3 2022 - released October 2022)
  market share, trend
• UK - National Radio Audience (Q3 2022 - released October 2022)
  BBC/commercial 'gap'
• France - Greater Paris Radio Audience (July 2022)
  national and local channels, market share, trend
national channels, sectors, market share, reach/TSL
• France - National Radio Summer Audience (September 2021)
  national channels, summer period 2016-2021 trend
• Spain - National Radio Audience (July 2021)
  national and regional channels, reach share, trend
• Romania - Radio Audience (May 2021)
  national and Bucharest surveys, market share, trend
• Belgium - Flemish region, Radio Audience (April 2021)
  market share, Jan-Apr 2019 to Sep 2020-Feb 2021 trend
• Belgium - French region, Radio Audience (April 2021)
  market share, Jan-Apr 2019 to Sep 2020-Feb 2021 trend
• France - Greater Paris Radio Audience (April 2021)
  national and local channels, market share, trend
• Austria - Major Media - Radio Broadcasting (February 2021)
  public and private broadcasters, owners, management, audience trend

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