The radio media audience has never been so low. The erosion even seems to be accelerating. According to the figures revealed, Wednesday, July 12, by the company Médiamétrie, only 70.6% of French people listened to the radio every day from April to the end of June, that is to say 39.26 million of them, against 71.2 % compared to the same period a year ago (−124,000).
In this slump, France Inter is stable with 12.5% of cumulative audience, as in 2022 at the same period. This spring wave confirms its status as France’s leading radio station, a position it has held for four seasons now. However, with 6.96 million listeners, the station failed to repeat the performance of the January-March wave, during which it had exceeded the historic milestone of seven million listeners.
Its private rival RTL is not in good shape, it slips by −0.6 points (9.5%) and falls again below the symbolic bar of 10%, as at the start of the 2022 school year, while RMC remains at 5.6%. Contacted, the M6 group management did not wish to comment even if its music is stable: Fun Radio ends at 3.7% (as in 2022 at the same period) and RTL2 gains 0.1 point over one year, at 3.8%.
Spectacular Leap of Nostalgia
Still on the musical side, the 100% rap station Skyrock remains at 5.8%. NRJ fell slightly to 7.7% (−0.2 point), like Chérie FM, to 2.8% (−0.3 point). In the NRJ group, we prefer to congratulate ourselves on the spectacular jump of Nostalgie which reached 6.2% (i.e. + 0.7 point in the space of a year) or be positive about the stability of Rire et Chansons at 1.9% .
If Franceinfo retains its third place with its 8.8%, it loses 0.2 points. The haemorrhage in the number of listeners becomes more worrying for France Bleu, ending the season at 4.5% (−0.7%). Céline Pigalle, who has just taken over the station at the local forty-four in early April, will have a lot to do to straighten out the audiences.
With 3.5% (− 0.3 points), Europe 1 also continues to fall. The private station controlled by Vincent Bolloré had never collected such a low score. On August 28, the two new recruits, Pascal Praud (11 a.m. to 1 p.m.) and Sophie Davant (4 p.m. to 6 p.m.), will therefore arrive on a weakened antenna. The Lagardère group’s musical radio stations are no better: RFM drops to 3% (−0.3 points) when Europe 2 loses 0.6 points to 2.2%.
As for Indés Radios (a group that brings together 129 radio stations in France), they are pleased to reach 12.8% of cumulative audience, an increase of 0.3 points, while generalist radio stations (− 0.9 points ) and music (− 0.3 points) are down overall or are stable for themed stations. France Culture also totals 3% of cumulative audience, its best score of the April-June waves.