French Radio Stations Attract More Listeners

Text of report by Sandrine Bajos, “More people are listening to the radio in France”, published by French newspaper La Tribune website on 17 January

Increasing numbers of French people are listening to their radios. According to the “126 000″ Mediametrie poll on our listening habits in November and December 2005, radio stations have gained 354,000 listeners for a total of 42.2 million loyal listeners. The media that benefited from the intense national events – notably the violence in the suburbs and the introduction of the curfew – “is doing well,” underscores Didier de Saint-Roman, the director of Mediametrie’s radio department. He explains that among the “new listeners over this period, 255,000 come from top socio- professional groups.”

Over the last two months of the year, the NRJ music station has confirmed its leadership in terms of accumulated audience (the percentage of people who listened at least once to the radio between 0500 hours and 2400 hours) with 12.1 per cent but the radio station lost 0.5 of a point in a one-year period. The station is ahead of the general-interest RTL (11.8 per cent, loss of 0.3 of a point), France Inter (10.2 per cent, down 0.1 per cent of a point), and Europe 1 (9.2 per cent, down 0.5 of a point). RMC comes out well in this as it watches its accumulated audience increase from 4.2 per cent to 4.8 per cent. France Info also does well by progressing from 9.7 per cent to 9.9 per cent.

140 Minutes a Day

If we take share of the audience (listening time) as the criteria, RTL overwhelmingly dominates the radio industry landscape with 11.4 per cent (down 0.8 per cent of a point) and with an audience that listens to the station 140 minutes a day on average compared to 84 minutes for an NRJ listener. France Inter gets an audience share of 8.8 per cent, down by 0.1 of a point over one year, while Europe 1 is credited with 8 per cent, the same score as last year. They are followed by NRJ (7 per cent, down by 0.6 of a point), Nostalgie (5.7 per cent), France Bleue (5.3 per cent), Cherie FM (4.1 per cent), France Info (4 per cent, stable), Skyrock (3.9 per cent), and RMC (3.7 per cent). Radio Classique, a specialized station, achieves its best score of its history with an audience share of 1.1 per cent. RFM has also had a good year in 2005 with an audience share of 3.6 per cent (+0.7 of a point in one year) and an accumulated audience of 5 per cent (+0.5 of a point). Finally, the group of independents that is made up of 109 stations stagnated at 10 per cent in audience share. It is progressing in terms of accumulated audience by increasing from 13.6 per cent to 14.2 per cent in one year.