Reducing on-air advertising to win back listeners: this is the bet that private radio RTL is making to redress its audiences in the face of public service and its virtual absence of advertising, announced its president in Le Figaro on Friday.
“We are going from six advertising screens per hour to four. The volume of advertisements will be limited to 12 minutes per hour on average, where it previously reached 15 minutes,” explained Régis Ravanas, the president of RTL.
These 12 minutes are an average over the day: in detail, there will be 10 minutes of advertising per hour during the morning, the flagship slot for radio audiences, and 13 minutes per hour on the rest of the schedule.
“We are aware that RTL must improve the listening quality of listeners,” recognized the president of the radio station owned by the M6 group.
Reducing advertising is, by his own admission, “a significant effort” financially. According to Le Figaro, this reduces turnover “by several million euros”.
“The hope is to regain, thanks to an increase in the audience and therefore better price valuation, what we will lose in terms of number of advertising spots,” explained Mr. Ravanas.
France’s leading radio station until 2019, RTL was dethroned that year by the public station France Inter, which has since set audience records.
Over the period September-October, then November-December, RTL was even beaten into second place by another public radio station, franceinfo.
According to the latest figures published Thursday by Médiamétrie, France Inter was listened to by some 7.5 million listeners every day in November-December, compared to 5.2 million for franceinfo and 4.9 million for RTL.
However, compared to September-October, RTL is progressing slightly. This corresponds to big changes on the grid, with among others the arrivals of Thomas Sotto in the morning and Faustine Bollaert.
This “good dynamic” shows that “the public adheres to our new editorial proposal”, argued Mr. Ravanas.
Until 2016, public radio stations, financed by the state, did not have the right to broadcast advertising. Since this date, three antennas can do so, France Inter, franceinfo and France Bleu, but with limits: 30 minutes maximum per day (and no more than 17 minutes per day on average over a quarter), and three minutes maximum per day in annual average for the 7:00 a.m./9:00 a.m. period.
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