Public Channels Still Leading, Still Slipping

Michael Hedges July 22, 2016 Follow on Twitter

As audiences shift public broadcasters face a certain quandary. With money and wherewithal to adopt new technical platforms legacy brands can be victims on institutional inertia. New channels can be developed easily. Older ones, typically with huge structures, seem to run out of energy. Private sector broadcasters don’t have that problem.

Radio audiences in Switzerland are rather uncomplicated, measurement-wise. Regional channels of public broadcaster SSR-SRG always lead, private local stations challenge furtively. Switzerland’s radio broadcasters have been measured electronically for nearly two decades and the semi-annual Mediapulse reports are divided by linguistic region.

In the Swiss-German region that includes Zürich, Basel, Bern and points in between aggregate market share for public SFR channels was up slightly to 59.7% from 59.4% year on year. Indeed the first five in regional rankings are SFR channels. Market leading general interest channel SFR1, however, dropped to 30.7% market share from 31.6%. Five years ago SFR1 had 34.3% market share. Pop/rock channel SFR 3 placed second, off slightly to 17.0% market share. All-digital Schlager/folk music channel SFR Musikwelle ranked 3rd with 6.9% market share, highest ever. From the first of 2014 Mediapulse added internet listening to audience estimates. Switzerland was an early adopter of digital radio platforms. (See Swiss German radio market share chart here)

Privately owned station in the Swiss-German region on aggregate were off slightly to 29.9% market share. Energy Zürich leads with 2.5% regional market share, best in more than five years. Zürich station Radio 24 suffered most falling to 2.3% market share from 2.8% one year on. Most of the rest, more than two dozen, were up slightly, down slightly or unchanged.

Aggregate market shares in the French-speaking region were similar, little significant change. Leading RTS general interest channel La Premiere was up to 38.7% market share from 38.1% year on year. All-music RTS Option Musique placed second, dropping to 9.1% market share from 10.0%. Arts and culture channel RTS Espace 2, further down the list, jumped to 2.6% market share from 2.1%. (See Swiss French radio market share trend chart here)

Private local stations in the French-speaking region were led by network BNJ FM, LFM and Rouge FM, all more or less unchanged. Radio Fribourg gained the most, 2.8% market share up from 2.2%. The French-speaking region has the country’s highest market share for foreign radio, 10.1%, due largely to penetration by French national radio channels Nostalgie, NRG and Virgin Radio, all marketed to Swiss listeners.

The tiny Italian-speaking region gave the worst news to public broadcasters and the best to private operators. On aggregate market share for regional public broadcaster RSI fell to 61.9% from 64.3% and lowest in forever. General interest channel RSI Uno plunged to 39.6% market share from 41.5% one year on. Culture channel RSI Due dropped to 4.3% market share from 5.0%. All-digital national channel Radio Swiss Pop had its best showing ever, 4.1% market share. (See Swiss Italian radio market share trend chart here)

Happy are the private stations in the Italian-speaking region. For the first time local station 3i popped above 10% (10.1% market share) from 9.4% year on year. (See happy statement from private radio association VSP here - in German) On aggregate private station market share in the Italian-speaking region, there are only a handful, rose to 15.8% from 14.9%. Foreign stations - largely from Italy - attracted 7.6% aggregate market share, up from 6.9%. Swiss Italians are the country’s biggest radio consumers, 89% tuning in daily and climbing.

See also in ftmKnowledge

Europe's Radio - Western Europe

Opportunity meets tradition in Western Europe's radio broadcasting. Change has come fast and yet oh, so slowly. This ftm Knowledge file contains material and resources on public and private radio broadcasting in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Liechtenstein, Netherlands and Switzerland. 244 pages. Resources. PDF (September 2013)

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