Fun Radio sentenced for manipulating audiences

The “fungate” may have found its epilogue. After a wait that will have lasted seven years, the musical radio station of the RTL Fun Radio group has just been sentenced by the Paris commercial court to a fine of more than 11 million euros for ” unfair competition “, against a backdrop of audience manipulation.

The case dates back to 2015 and 2016, and it caused a stir at the time. On the air, the station’s star host, Bruno Guillon, had encouraged listeners to respond that they listened to Fun Radio all day when they were contacted by an investigator from the Médiamétrie institute. “Take ten minutes. Why ? Because this person will ask you questions: “What radio station did you listen to yesterday morning?” You say, “Fun Radio.” Hop! And afterwards, on returning from work: “Which radio station did you listen to?” “I was listening to Fun Radio.” “And when you go to bed?” “I was listening to Fun Radio””, he then hammered on the air. In total, the analysis of a hundred radio sequences made it possible to highlight that the word “Médiamétrie” had been pronounced 150 times and systematically associated with Fun Radio or listening to Fun Radio, indicates the commercial court in his judgment. The word “survey” was pronounced 99 times, “audience” came up 71 times…

Now, as then, Fun Radio maintains that these messages were “spoken without any intention of manipulating the audience results, in the wake of a practice which was widespread in the radio market at the material time”. The radio, owned at the time by RTL and today by the M6 ​​group, also asserts the dismissal of the case in the context of the criminal proceedings launched after a complaint by NRJ. In March 2022, the investigating judge had, in fact, concluded that these messages had been “delivered in a humorous and spontaneous tone without any intention of manipulating the audience results”, indicates Fun Radio. What its competitors have always contested.

Massive advertising campaign

Far from seeing it as a form of schoolboy humor, the groups Lagardère, NextRadioTV, Skyrock, NRJ or even the Independent Group had in 2016 cried fraud, accusing the music station of having cheated deliberately and repeatedly. “Médiamétrie and audiences are of interest to media people. But it’s not a natural editorial topic on a music radio station that caters mostly to young people,” observes Maryam Salehi, the deputy general manager of the NRJ group. In its judgment, the court concludes that the inducements of host Bruno Guillon had the same effects on the behavior of the station’s listeners as a large-scale advertising campaign.

Read alsoFun Radio case: RTL negotiates with some of its competitors

Result ? Fun Radio’s audience skyrocketed. In the first quarter of 2016, the station even recorded a historic audience record, up 0.8 points, to 7.5%, according to data from Médiamétrie. progress that “had never been seen on the radio, a usual medium”, underlines the judgment. Médiamétrie had decided to put the kibosh by removing Fun Radio from the results of the audience wave for the second quarter of 2016. NRJ recalls that all the messages broadcast “allowed Fun Radio to artificially increase its audiences, which had the effect of increasing its revenues, to the detriment of the NRJ group in particular “. A subject all the more explosive at the time as the market share of music radios was much greater. Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music weren’t as powerful. In the first quarter of 2016, NRJ was France’s leading radio station, ahead of RTL. And, with each wave, the two stations disputed the leadership.

Several of the plaintiffs have dropped out over the years. There still remained M Radio and NRJ, which obtained respectively 1 million and 10 million euros in damages. RTL Group will have to get its hands on the wallet alone, the M6 ​​group “having acquired Fun Radio after these facts “Said M6, who is considering appealing.

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