Economía digital’s article analyses in detail the situation of the audience crisis of the public broadcaster. Source
Radio Nacional de Espana has lost 190,000 listeners in just a few months, and now has around one million. It is an unprecedented collapse that emerged from the General Media Study (EGM) audience survey at the end of the third round of surveys. Compared to the first quarter (the survey was suspended in the second quarter due to the pandemic), the drop was 15%. And the drop does not only affect the flagship network, but also (although to a lesser extent) the other public networks.
An old article in the newspaper Vozpopuli also spoke of the tense atmosphere created in February in the public broadcasting networks by the redundancy campaign. Source
Economía digital (Spain’s fifth largest news group, a native of the network) points the finger at the redundancies, resignations and new appointments made this year in the TV and radio networks. Changes made by Rosa María Mateo (RNE’s interim sole director) and Enric Hernández (news director) have triggered a reaction from the trade unions.
The graph shows the contacts of the three most followed networks on the internet: while COPE is 600,000 users ahead of SER, the network in third place, Onda Cero, has almost 9 million fewer contacts. Source
SER (+241,000) and, marginally, COPE (+20,000) gained. COPE is also the first in terms of digital audience: the Cadena de Ondas Populares Espanolas (also owner of Cadena 100, Rock FM and Megastar FM brands), has exceeded twelve million unique users, outstripping rival SER by over 600,000 followers.
The report in the Argentine daily La Nación points out that Disney’s radio station has helped launch a number of celebrities, including Selena Gomez (pictured). Source
In the first quarter of 2021, the Walt Disney Company will close Radio Disney and Radio Disney Country. Opened in 1995, the station owned 23 medium-wave stations to reach a large audience of young people and teenagers, but with the spread of streaming in 2014 most of the stations (22) had been sold and the signal was being broadcast digitally, on satellite and in some HD Radio subchannels. Radio Disney Country, a secondary streaming brand launched in the autumn of 2015, was no longer on AM as of 2017 because the station broadcasting it, 1110 KDIS in Pasadena (Los Angeles) had changed its name and format, becoming KRDC. The end of broadcasting is also caused by the uncertainties of the pandemic about the future of live music events. Thirty-six employees (full-time and part-time staff) will lose their jobs and the Pasadena station will be sold off. The closuredoes not affect Radio Disney in Latin America.
The image shows the sign installed on 5 October 2020 announcing the start of work on the site that will host a new 100 kW medium wave digital DRM transmitter at Sariab Road (Quetta) Source
The PBC (Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation) has asked the government to make it compulsory for cars to be equipped with digital receivers in the next five-year plan for the automobile industry. For some time now, public radio and television have been broadcasting using the DRM digital standard in the AM and FM bands. DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale), unlike DAB (which uses VHF channels in band III), is a digital broadcasting system applicable to all frequencies, from the HF bands (LW, MW, SW) to VHF (bands I, II, the FM band, and band III). And it foresees investments to complete the digital migration in the next five to seven years, to improve audio quality (claimed to be equal to that of a CD) and energy efficiency.
Buongiorno Slovakia, an online newspaper published in Italian since 2009, talks about the proposed increase in the radio and television licence fee and the difficulties of approval after similar initiatives had been rejected in recent years Source
RTVS, radio and television of Slovakia (Rozhlas a televízia Slovenska) has accounts in the red. In the last ten years, attempts have been made several times to adjust the canon to make up for it, but they have always failed. The last one was in 2016, when the Minister of Culture proposed to raise it to 7 EUR (about 50% more). Today citizens pay 4.64 EUR per month, pensioners 2.32 EUR, rates set 17 years ago. The current proposal (to go up to 8.5 EUR, 83% more) will have a long and difficult path: to be approved, it will have to pass the inter-ministerial evaluation, reach the Council of Ministers and finally be voted by Parliament. More details here
There is also controversy in Germany
In Germany from 2013 the cost of the annual fee is set at 17.50 EUR per month, with plans to rise to 18.36 EUR from 2021 Source
When you touch up a concession fee it is never roses and flowers. In Germany in 2022 the increase will only be 86 Cents per month, but in Saxony there is resistance from the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Eurosceptic nationalists of AFD (Alternative für Deutschland). The newspaper Nordbayern warns of the possible convergence between the two political forces to block the increase; an approach defined as “typically East German”. But Nordbayern is also critical of those who minimize it by saying that the figure is modest, because in both cases the management of public service is not questioned. This is something to be said about, because during the pandemic (according to a study conducted by researchers at the University of Passau) the ARD and ZDF networks with their special programmes created a climate of permanent threat without sufficiently questioning the measures taken by the government.
The situation in other European countries
The AGI service compares the cost of the fee in different European countries. In the photo, the bronze horse, five metres high, work of the Sicilian sculptor Francesco Messina installed in 1966 in front of the historical headquarters of the RAI in Rome, Viale Mazzini 14, has become the symbol of the public broadcaster Source
In Italy, according to a study by Anci (Association of Italian Municipalities) conducted in 2011, the radio and television fee was the most hated tax: it was evaded by 25% of the population. To avoid it, in 2016 the Renzi government reduced it from 116.50 to 90 EUR per year and linked the payment to the electricity bill. In France the annual fee is 139 EUR, but advertising has been abolished from the public networks. In the United Kingdom, on the other hand, the fee is £157.50 (173.50 EUR), and if you use a black and white TV set, reduced to £53. In Spain the tax was abolished in 2010, but according to a study by the University of Santiago de Compostela, it costs citizens 98.80 EUR in fees. More details and rates from other European countries can be found in the article published by AGI Agenzia Giornalistica Italia. Curious also the case of Austria: the amount is not uniform, but between 41.86 EUR in Oberösterreich / Vorarlberg and 53.46 EUR in Steiermark.
The new Audi radio indicates whether the signal is coming from FM or the web: WILD 94.9, in the area where the image was taken (Bay of San Francisco, California), is available via their Internet stream. Source
Audi cars sold in the United States can be equipped with a hybrid car radio (i.e. capable of receiving the signal over the air or streaming via the internet) that maintains the tuning of the preferred station even if the signal broadcast over the air is weakening during the journey. With a traditional device, when you leave the coverage area of a station, noise increases until the audio becomes unintelligible. Cars equipped with the Hybrid Radio® system, on the other hand, allow you to continue listening because when the listening quality starts to deteriorate they automatically switch from the signal transmitted over the air to the digital signal received via the Internet.
Star 101.3, a San Francisco radio station owned by iHeartRadio, is received at the current vehicle position only via the web. Source
The new functionality is available on vehicles in the 2021 series (on sale from September 2020) equipped with the MIB 3 modular multimedia system, which connects to the network thanks to the integrated 4G Wi-Fi hotspot (requires a subscription to the Audi connect® Prime or Plus service). iHeartRadio, a leading U.S. radio company, is making more than 600 stations throughout North America compatible with the Hybrid Radio® system, in order to participate in the project.
The Swiss radio site has dedicated a service to Radio Al-Balad, a community radio station in Amman broadcasting on FM 92.5 MHz, which has devised a programme written and conducted by Syrian refugees. Source
Radio Al-Balad, a community radio station in Amman, devised a programme written and conducted bySyrian refugees. The idea came from Daoud Kuttab, director of the Community Media Network, to which the station also belongs, to give a voice to the refugees of the conflict, more than 1.3 million in the country. In recent years, the radio staff has trained about a hundred reporters who have produced reports for the programme “Syrians among us”.
Archbishop Thomas Luke Msusa (in the centre of the photo) is “impressed by the commitment of the team” that is carrying out the project of the new Catholic radio station. Source
Kuwala FM, a broadcaster of the Archdiocese of Blantyre, Malawi, was created to appeal to over 2 million listeners. It is the fourth regional radio of the Catholic Church in the country, after Radio Alinafe of the archdiocese of Lilongwe, Radio Tigabane of the diocese of Mzuzu and Tuntufye FM of the diocese of Karonga. The communications coordinator of the Archdiocese of Blantyre, Father Frank Mwinganyama, plans to go on air by the end of 2020. Radio Maria Malawi, Luntha Television and Montfort Media also operate in the diocese of Mangochi.
Happy 1st of December! Let’s bring the Christmas time on.
For this years anticipation to Christmas the RadioReporter community has created a special surprise for you! We have collected our favourite radio stations and put them in an online Advent Calendar for you.
We proudly present the RadioReporter Advent Calendar. Stay curious and explore a new radio station every day until Christmas. We hope you enjoy our special selection and share it with your loved ones.
The advent time is a Christian tradition and spans over the period before Christmas. It covers the four Sundays before the Christmas Eve (24th December), starting with the Sunday closest to 30th November, the feast day of Saint Andrew the Apostle.
In the late 1800s the tradition of counting down the days til Christmas started in form of lighting candles or marking the days with chalk. “The first printed Advent calendar originated in Germany in the early 20th century with Gerhard Lang. When Gerhard was a little boy his mother made him a calendar with 24 small candies attached to cardboard, one for each day before Christmas.” (Source)
