French Radio Audience Drops. Radio France Suffers

Michael Hedges July 20, 2006

The lowest radio listening levels in three years shocks French broadcasters

Fewer listeners tuned into French radio in the April-June Médiamétrie radio survey, only 81.2%, the lowest listening level in years. The April-June period tends to fall slightly more than one share point from January-March but this year the drop was a full two points between periods. Five holidays occurred during the April-June 2006 survey period (April 3rd and July 2nd) , three more than the same period in 2005.

Commercial networks aggregated share rose to 74.6%, another record. Groupement les indépendents (GIE), a sales network of 112 local stations, increased its overall market share to 10.7% over 9.9% one year on.

Market shares being a zero-sum game increases are off-set by losses somewhere. For the first time in several years the combined market for Radio France channels fell to 19.7% from 20.3% one year on. In a press release explaining their suffering, Radio France blamed the run-up to the World Cup for the audience loss.

That might explain the gain of RMC – heavily invested in sports talk and information. The channel posted the largest market share gain of any channel, year on year, to 4.2% (8th place) from 3.3% (11th place). In fact, RMC has grown steadily over the last three years.

RTL, of course, remains the French national channel with the highest market share, increasing to 11.6% from 11.5% one year on. RTL’s listeners spent an average of 147 minutes per day with the channel, the highest of all French national channels.

Second place became a bit more interesting. France Inter and Europe 1 are now tied at 7.9%. One year on, this is no change in market share for France Inter but Europe 1 lost share from 8.3% in 2005 when the channel held 2nd place (briefly) over France Inter.

NRJ is up, up, up! Now in 4th place with a market share of 7.7%, the leading music channel is up from 7.3% in 2005. Cherie FM, also part of NRJ Group, increased to 4.1% (tied for 9th place with RFM) from 3.7% (8th place) one year on. Nostalgie kept 5th place, increasing market share to 5.8% from 5.7% year on year. Rire & Chansons dropped slightly to 1.6% from 1.7% in 2005.

RFM (tied for 9th) is clearly taking listeners from Skyrock. RFM’s 4.1% market share is it best showing, an increase from 3.4% (10th place) in 2005. Skyrock stayed in 7th place, dropping to 4.5% market share from 5.1% in 2005.

Losses by France Bleu and France Info added to the Radio France suffering. France Bleu kept its 6th place among all French national channels but market share dropped to 5.2% from 5.4%. France Info dropped to 3.6% (11th place) from 4% (8th place) year on year.

Below the top ten; Fun Radio and Radio Classique gained while RTL2, Europe 2 and MFM did not.

The Médiamétrie 126,000 radio audience survey counts listeners 13 years and older.

ftm Follow Up & Comments