Radio audiences: France Inter still in the lead, RTL loses its second place to France Info

Earthquake at RTL this Thursday morning. The radio which was leader until 2019 is no longer the second radio station in France. It is doubled by France Info and drops to third place among the most listened to stations, in September and October 2024, according to the results of the Médiamétrie national EAR study. France Inter is still in the lead with 12.8% cumulative audience, ahead of France Info at 8.9% and RTL at 8.7%.

RTL has been regularly losing listeners for several waves of surveys. To stop the bleeding, it made several changes to its program schedule in September: arrival of Thomas Sotto in the morning in place of Yves Calvi, now at the head of the evening news program, Lorant Deutsch l afternoon, recruitment of Faustine Bollaert in the evening. But that wasn't enough. The audience continues to decline, to 4.9 million listeners, which is a hard blow for RTL's advertising revenue.

France Info today attracts 4.97 million listeners per day, undoubtedly driven by rich news between the first steps of Michel Barnier's government, the Mazan rape trial, the war between Israel and Hamas or the elections European.

7.2 million listeners per day for France Inter

For France Inter, it’s a huge success. Public radio attracted 265,000 additional listeners in one year and attracts 7.2 million people every day, or 12.8% of the cumulative audience. Its audience share – a criterion which combines the number of listeners and listening time – reached 15.1%, which no radio station has ever achieved. A remarkable performance when we know that the radio medium regularly loses listeners. 37.8 million French people listen to the radio every day, a loss of 295,000 listeners in one year.

Among other general radio stations, RMC is losing listeners, going from 5.8% to 5.2% of cumulative audience in one. Conversely, Europe 1 regained color and achieved its best result in 4 years thanks to the presence of Pascal Praud at midday and the arrival of Cyril Hanouna in the afternoon, increasing by 3.8%. at 4.4%, or more than 300,000 new listeners. We must also salute the increase in the audience of France Bleu (from 4.5% to 4.6%) and especially of France Culture which attracts 3.8% of the cumulative audience compared to 3.3% in autumn 2023 .

Also read:
Radio audiences 2024: France Inter, RMC, NRJ, Totem, 100%… What are the most listened to radio stations in your department?

Music radio stations are losing listeners

As for young music radio stations, NRJ continues to lose listeners, with 7.4% in cumulative audience compared to 7.9% a year ago. Skyrock shows a significant drop, from 6.2% to 5.4%, or 400,000 listeners lost. Same slope for Fun Radio at 3.3% versus 3.6%. Europe 2 continues to sink and falls below one million daily listeners at 1.6% despite the recruitment of Benjamin Castaldi in the morning.

Adult music radio audiences smile at Nostalgie. Music from the 80s allows it to display a cumulative audience of 6.6%. It was 6% in the fall of 2023. RTL2 drops a little from 3.8% to 3.6%. Chérie FM and RFM are tied at 3% (- 0.1% for Chérie FM, + 0.1% for RFM). Finally, note the decline of the Les Indés Radio group, which brings together 129 regional radio stations, to 12.5% ​​of the cumulative audience.