Radios have almost recovered

Radiocontrol The Swiss listened to more radio again in the second half of 2002, especially SRG stations. These stations gained market share almost everywhere, primarily at the expense of private stations. But foreign radio stations also lost listeners.The picture is similar in all language regions: SRG radio stations were able to maintain or even increase their market shares in the second half of 2002, while private stations stagnated or lost market share. The market shares of foreign stations also continued to decline everywhere, most sharply in Ticino (-1 percent).For the first time, it is possible to compare two entire radio control years. There are stations that are subject to seasonal fluctuations in listener favor, i.e. that perform better in the first half of the year than in the second - or vice versa. But there are only a few of them. What is clear, however, is that 2001 was the better radio year. Overall radio usage declined last year, but not quite as sharply as the first half of 2002 would have suggested.
Over the whole of 2002, listening time was 121 minutes per day in German-speaking Switzerland, 115 minutes in French-speaking Switzerland and 120 minutes in Ticino. In 2001, the German-speaking Swiss listened to the radio for four minutes longer, while the French-speaking Swiss listened for three minutes longer - the Ticino, on the other hand, remained true to its habits. Most stations also felt the effects of this. Only a few did better in terms of reach in 2002 than in the previous year - these are Central, BE1, Fribourg, RSR3, NRJ, One FM, RTN 2001, RSI1, Fiume Ticino and Studio Star.
In German-speaking Switzerland, the gap between private and DRS stations widened further throughout the past year. For the private stations, the loss in reach of -7.5 percent over the year as a whole is particularly significant. In contrast, the losses of all DRS stations as a whole remain within bounds, although of course the dives of DRS 2 and MW 531 in the first half of 2002 are still cause for concern (-37.9 percent and -28.6 percent, respectively). Neither really recovered in the second half. Virus doesn't cut a good figure either; the ailing youth station has lost further ground.
Among private radio broadcasters in German-speaking Switzerland, the losses of the first half of 2002 were accentuated in many places in the second half. This is particularly evident in Zurich. Both Radio 24 and Hitradio Z had reached their zenith in the second half of 2001, which had been particularly "good" in terms of news. But then both relaunched, and since then they have been among the biggest losers. Today, Hitradio Z has 43200 fewer listeners than a year ago (-17.2 percent). Radio 24 did not fare much better, with a total loss of 41700 listeners (-14.1 percent). Radio 24's lead over competitor Z is now 45400 listeners, but 24's market share is 0.8 percent higher.
There were also painful losses in the second half of 2002 at Eviva (-9800 listeners or -10.2 percent), at Radio 7 (-10.3 percent), at the cable station 32 Goldies (-14.3 percent) and at Tropic (-11.8 percent). The absolute reach winner, however, is Central: The station in central Switzerland gained a full 12800 listeners (+11.9 percent) in the second half of 2002, and now has 120700 listeners, its previous Radiocontrol peak. However, the simultaneous loss in listening time (-13 minutes) must be accepted as a drop of bitterness.
In percentage terms, newcomer Toxic.fm (St.Gallen) did best, recording an increase of 18.1 percent at a much lower level and also being listened to six minutes longer. Beo (+11.3 percent) and the radio stations in eastern Switzerland also did well: At Aktuell, the relaunch probably caused an increase of 12.1 percent, but competitor Top also increased again by 6.5 percent at a higher level, and even the small Radio L found 1700 more listeners - probably in the area of Ri, which in turn lost 2100 listeners.
City pool takes a beatingIf you look at the losses from the perspective of the various radio pools, the Bern module of Pool 2000 in particular is stronger, while the City pool loses out and the One pool gets off lightly. In the latter, Central and Top manage to compensate for the coverage losses of Hitradio Z, Argovia, Radio 32, Ri and Grischa/Piz.
In the City Pool, on the other hand, there is no one who can plug the Zurich hole; Basilisk's profit can only just make up for the losses of Pilatus and Zürisee. In addition, the City Pool in Bern is becoming increasingly weaker. ExtraBern has made gains there, but less than BE1, and the Bern module of Pool 2000 has also strengthened considerably in the Oberland. In Basel, on the other hand, the Basel module of Pool 2000 is losing listeners: Regenbogen is losing listeners, Edelweiss is gaining only half of them. As a result, both together are only just able to outdo their competitor Basilisk.
Since the introduction of Radiocontrol, the cable station Radio 105 has not been able to get going. On the contrary, it has reached a temporary low in terms of reach and market share. The even worse performance of competitor Virus cannot hide its own problems.
Indispensable despite lossesIn western Switzerland, the situation is much more balanced. There, the ranking of private radio stations remains virtually intact, but there are three major losers in terms of reach: Nostalgie lost 4.9%, falling below the 100,000 mark for the first time, and for the first time is weaker than RSR 2. One FM and Lausanne FM also lost 5.8% and 3.7% of their listeners, respectively. For the two Fontana radios (One FM and Lausanne FM), this loss is particularly annoying, since they have just been kicked out of all pools in western Switzerland. In this situation, they would have liked to present good figures to the advertising clients. However, the losses should not harm them, because they remain indispensable for media planners in the most important conurbations in French-speaking Switzerland.
In French-speaking Switzerland, the winners include stations with rather small reaches, such as WRG (+23.6 percent), Thollon (+17.3 percent) and RTN 2001 (+7.1 percent). And Fribourg, which struggled financially last year, seems to have recovered somewhat.
The SRG stations in French-speaking Switzerland, on the other hand, all lost reach in the second half of the year, led by RSR 3, but also RSR 1. This also led to a slight loss of market share for French-speaking Swiss radio.
The situation was different in Ticino: With the exception of RSI 2, all RSI stations increased their reach and market shares. Among the private stations, the foreign station RTO, which was measured for the first time, came out on top with a reach of 23,400 listeners. That is only 4400 listeners less than RSI 2, but SRG radio is still listened to twice as long as RTO.
RadiocontrolIt looks like a normal watch. But inside Radiocontrol - a digital dial indicator for analyzing the Swiss radio market - is a concentrated load of high-tech: a microphone picks up ambient noise, a chip stores the data digitally. And thanks to a motion detector and temperature sensor, manipulation is almost impossible.
The Radiocontrol clock has been in use since 2001. 2002 were
804 watches worn per day. (mk)
Radios German Switzerland (1st semester + 2nd semester 2002), net reach in 1000 listeners and market share in % in German-speaking Switzerland, Mon-Sun, 24 h, persons 15+.
Total radio 3883.8 100 3896.0 100

Radio groups
Total SRG 2879.4 62.8 2912.3 64.5
Private CH 2296.8 27.9 2313.6 26.4
Foreign countries 1765.2 9.3 1803.2 9.1
SRG
Total DRS 2669.6 59.0 2714.1 60.8
DRS 1 1951.2 40.9 1982.3 42.1
DRS 2 379.7 4.2 396.8 4.3
DRS 3 876.3 10.6 914.0 11.2
MW 531 292.2 3.2 293.1 3.1
Virus 28.1 0.1 27.9 0.1
1 Radio 24 261.0 3.1 253.1 3.0

2 Hitradio Z 221.4 2.6 207.7 2.2
3 Top 178.2 1.5 189.8 1.5
4 Argovia 172.9 1.9 169.1 2.0
5 Lake Zurich 158.2 1.6 157.7 1.6
6 Grischa/Piz 156.1 1.4 153.4 1.2
7 Pilate 140.7 1.8 138.1 1.5
8 (9) Basilisk 128.8 1.5 132.6 1.5
9 (8) Radio 32 133.0 1.6 131.9 1.6
10 (11) Central 107.9 1.3 120.7 1.1
11 (10) Sunshine 116.2 1.2 117.2 1.2
12 Eviva 96.2 1.1 86.4 1.0
13 BE1 81.0 0.9 86.3 0.9
14 Extra BE 80.5 0.7 85.0 0.6
15 (16) BeO 72.3 0.8 80.5 0.9
16 (15) Rainbow (D) 78.4 0.6 74.8 0.5
17 (20) Edelweiss 69.4 0.5 71.2 0.6
18 (19) Current 63.4 0.6 71.1 0.7
19 (18) Rottu 68.6 0.7 71.1 0.6
20 (21) Canal 3 (net) 66.1 0.4 71.1 0.3
21 (17) Radio 7 (D) 70.8 0.5 63.5 0.4
22 Freiburg (net) 59.7 0.2 61.0 0.2
23 Radio 105 58.5 0.5 57.1 0.4
24 Ri 54.1 0.4 52.0 0.3
25 Emme 48.1 0.3 49.4 0.3
26 Radio L (FL) 34.9 0.2 38.2 0.1
27 (28) Antenne Vorarlberg 28.9 0.1 33.5 0.1
29 Toxic.FM 27.0 0.1 31.9 0.1
30 3fold* 28.2 0.1
31 (27) Tropic 30.5 0.1 26.9 0.1
32 (30) 32 Goldies 26.6 0.1 22.8 0.1
In parentheses: Position in 2nd semester 01. Radio Munot is missing. Because the station takes over programming from SR DRS, no figures can yet be published for this radio station outside the Munot reception area for methodological reasons. * Surveyed for the first time Source Publica Data
Radios Romandie (1st semester + 2nd semester 2002)
Net reach in 1000 listeners and market share in % in French-speaking Switzerland, Mon-Sun, 24 h, persons 15+.
Total radio 1245.1 100 1241.9 100

Radio groups
Total RSR 889.1 61.7 884.8 61.7
Private CH 706.6 23.0 717.2 23.1
Abroad 649.8 15.3 636.2 15.2
SRG SSR
Total RSR 771.7 54.9 760.8 54.3
RSR 1 543.0 36.9 536.6 37.5
RSR 2 99.9 4.0 99.1 3.7
RSR 3 149.6 5.3 142.6 4.6
Option Musique 196.9 8.6 194.7 8.6
1 Nostalgia (F) 103.7 3.1 98.6 3.0

2 Lausanne FM 90.2 2.9 86.9 2.8
3 Framboise 79.9 2.5 80.6 2.4
4 NRJ (F) 73.9 1.8 75.3 2.0
5 One FM 72.2 2.4 68.0 2.4
6 RTN 2001*** 63.4 2.1 67.9 2.2
7 Rhône 63.2 2.4 62.8 2.3
8 Lac 56.9 1.5 59.4 1.6
9 (10) Fribourg (net) 56.0 1.6 57.0 1.6
10 (9) Fréquence Jura 56.3 2.2 56.3 2.1
11 Jura Bernois 52.4 1.8 51.6 1.6
12 Chablais 47.0 1.8 48.4 1.8
13 Europe 2 (F) 44.6 0.9 43.9 0.9
14 Thollon 28.3 0.4 33.2 0.6
15 Canal 3 (net) 23.7 0.4 23.5 0.5
16 WRG FM 16.5 0.3 20.4 0.4
In parentheses: Position in 2nd semester 01, ***Measurement only from 21.3. - 30.6.02 (due to jamming) Source: Publica Data
Radios Ticino (1st semester + 2nd semester 2002)
Net reach in 1000 listeners and market share in % in Ticino,
Mon-Sun, 24 h, persons 15+
Total radio 244.2 100 245.3 100

Radio groups
Total SSR 202.5 79.4 206.5 81.3
Private CH 82.1 6.2 82.3 5.3
Abroad 129.8 14.4 129.7 13.4
SRG SSR
Total RSI 180.7 67.6 183.4 69.9
RSI 1 148.6 51.0 153.2 53.9
RSI 2 28.7 7.3 27.8 7.2
RSI 3 49.2 9.3 50.8 8.8
1 RTO* 23.4 3.0

2 (1) Fiume Ticino 17.3 2.5 17.7 2.2
3 (2) 3iii 14.5 2.1 14.3 1.8
4 (3) Studio Star 5.5 0.6 5.8 0.6
*surveyed for the first time Source: Publica Data
>> What does the Swiss listen to?

Radiocontrol In the second half of 2002, the Swiss again listened to more radio, especially SRG stations. These stations gained market share across the board, primarily at the expense of the private stations.
Markus Knöpfli