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Sometimes little bits of insight emerge from the vast number of datasets available. Switzerland’s radio market has been, by and large, an icon of stability. Sure, there have been tilts and sways over the years but rarely does much jump off the chart… or spreadsheet.

Measurement institute Mediapulse recently released radio audience estimates for the country’s three linguistic regions. The Swiss-German, French and Italian speaking areas are distinct in many ways beyond language. Taken together it all pops out with radio listening. The Mediapulse report covers the January through June, 2020-1, period.

Radio listening, measured by gross reach, has been trailing off for several years. During the 2020-1 period, obviously covering the coronavirus outbreak and subsequent lockdowns, radio listening in the Swiss-German region dropped for the first time below 80%, 79.42% from 81.74% year on year. Listening in the Italian-speaking region dropped to 82.07% from 85.94%. In the French-speaking region gross reach dropped to 73.6%, lowest ever, from 78.69%. Average time spent listening (TSL) rose rather substantially in the Swiss-German speaking region to nearly two hours per day, fell noticeably in the French-speaking region and stayed about the same in the Italian-speaking region.

Regional channels of public broadcaster SSR-SRG generally rose, particularly the main general interest channels that are perennial market leaders. The market share for SFR1 in the Swiss-German region rose to 28.67% from 28.09% one year on. La Premiere in the French-speaking region jumped to 35.35% from 33.33%. Rete Uno in the Italian-speaking region turned in its best showing in two years, 36.98% from 34.66%. At the same time, youth-targeted public channels in the three regions were lower.

Privately-owned stations, which are mostly local, fared less well on aggregate. In the Swiss-German region private stations, on aggregate, dropped to 34.96% from 35.08%. This was mirrored in the French-speaking where aggregate market share for private stations dropped to 29.68% from 29.87% one year on. Lausanne-based LFM, however, moved into 4th place in the region with 6.68% market share, up from 5.4%. Private stations in the Italian-speaking region, on aggregate, fell to 19.79% market share from 21.09%, certainly affected by marked losses for Radio Ticino.

Radio channels from outside the country have varied affect on regional audience estimates. Despite bordering Germany and Austria, foreign broadcasters rarely make a dent in the Swiss-German region, only 3.1% and falling. The foreign station market share in the French-speaking is much larger, 8.27% on aggregate, but also falling from 9.15% one year on. This includes well-known brands Nostalgie and NRJ. In the Italian-speaking region market share for foreign stations was essentially unchanged at 5.78%.

Try very hard not to offend the listeners
dancing days, too, are over

When the ratings are published winners celebrate the listeners and losers complain about, well, everything. The Radio Track Kantar national radio audience estimates for the April-June period were very good for those at the top and not so good for others. There’s always another ratings period.

At the top is full-service hit music RMF FM, owned by Bauer Media. Its reach share hit 30.1%, up from 27.0% one year on. Quarter by quarter, this is the highest reach share for any national radio channel in the Radio Track history.

Second is Radio ZET, the full service adult contemporary channel. Its reach share is 12.9%, up from 12.1% one year on. It has gone through several changes in the last 18 months, both in ownership and management. It is principally owned by publisher Agora. Radio Eska, third place, fell to 7.0% reach share from 7.9%. (See Poland national radio audience trend chart here)

Attracting considerable attention in Poland were extreme audience losses by state radio Polskie Radio main channel Jedynka and youth channel Trojka. In effect, the bottom fell out of both. Jedynka dropped to 4.9% reach share, lowest in forever, from 6.1% year on year. Trojka tumbled to 4.3% reach share, also worst ever, from 5.3%. In May there was terrible PR for Trojka as a quite popular audience-driven chart show removed a top entry that offended politicians. The show’s long-time host and others walked out. (See more about media in Poland here)

Others gaining share include news-talk channel TOK FM, 2.6% from 2.1% one year on, and classic rock channel RMF Classic, 1.6% from 1.2%. Dance music VOX FM fell to 3.0% reach share from 4.0%.


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