“At night, I take my electric scooter (…) As I drive, I reflect. And I say to myself, it’s beautiful a city at night (…) 1er January, Virgin Radio becomes Europe 2.” Some listeners remember it: between 1990 and 1998, actor Richard Bohringer hosted a free-to-air program called “C’est beau une ville la nuit” on a radio station born in 1986 under the name of Europe 2. Renamed Virgin Radio on 1er January 2008, the station will return to its original surname in 2023.
At the start of the school year already, the regional radio Ado FM, broadcast in Paris, Ile-de-France and Toulouse, had followed the same route: after being called Swigg for five years, it became Ado again. By making the nostalgic fiber vibrate, both have only one objective: to set out again to conquer listeners. “In 2017, we changed our name because we wanted to follow the evolution of the musical tastes of 15-25 year olds, explains Jean-Eric Valli, the boss of Groupe 1981, to which Ado belongs. But it didn’t work. »
It was by relaunching the historic station in the form of a web radio in 2021 that Mr. Valli noticed a renewed interest: “It quickly became the most listened to of all our web radios”, he assures. Incidentally, the musical program has been reviewed: urban music has been muted, while golds (the titles that have become timeless) by Beyoncé or Drake have returned to service, neighboring the playlist with representatives of the new French scene.
Pragmatic reasons
On Europe 2 too, the playlist is being reformulated, designed to promote new French and international talents (Marie-Flore, Suzane, Yungblud, etc.), but also pop-rock tones rather than electro. “The radio audience of 13-24 year olds has lost twenty points [en audience cumulée] in five yearsrecalls Stéphane Bosc, the director of musical radio stations for the Lagardère group, owner of the station. It needed an electroshock. »
Indeed, while music radio was still achieving 6.3% of cumulative audience at the end of 2007 (just before attaching the brand of Richard Branson), it fell to 5.5% a year later, 4.8% ten years later, and 2.6% at the start of the 2022 school year… Even France Culture, with 3.1% cumulative audience in September-October, is doing better than her.
This return to origins should also be attempted for other, equally pragmatic reasons. According to a good connoisseur of the network, in fact, the financial compensation for using the name “Virgin” was of the order of 200,000 to 300,000 euros, in the form of a percentage of the station’s turnover, together with a guaranteed minimum. “We needed a more unifying name, a name that belongs to us, and above all something to create a brand platform with Europe 1”, merely indicates Stéphane Bosc, without giving a figure.
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